"And I've already killed your smile," she went on, looking down. "You don't smile any more the way you used to. You're not the boy you were when you came. Oh, to think of it--that it's all been my work. To kill your youth, to lead you into this slaughter pen where nothing--nothing lives but death--and hatred--and unhappiness." The tears leaped to her eyes. He caught her hands and pressed them between his until pain came into her fingers. "Listen, Linda," he commanded. She looked straight up at him. "Are you sorry I came?" "More than I can tell you--for your sake." "But when people look for the truth in this world, Linda, they don't take any one's sake into consideration. They balance all things and give them their true worth. Would you rather that you and I had never met--that I had never received Elmira's message--that you should live your life up here without ever hearing of me?" She dropped her eyes. "It isn't fair--to ask me that--" "Tell me the truth. Hasn't it been worth while? Even if we lose and die before this night is done, hasn't it all been worth while? Are you sorry you have seen me change? Isn't the change for the better--a man grown instead of a boy? One who looks straight and sees clear?" He studied her face; and after a while he found his answer. It was not in the form of words at first. As a man might watch a miracle he watched a new light come into her dark eyes. All the gloom and sorrow of the wilderness without could not affect its quality. It was a light of joy, of exultation, of new-found strength. "You hadn't ought to ask me that, Bruce," she said with a rather strained distinctness. "It has been like being born again. There aren't any words to tell you what it has meant to me. And don't think I haven't seen the change in you, too--the birth of a new strength that every day is greater, higher--until it is--almost more than I can understand. The old smiles are gone, but something else has taken their place--something much more dear to me--but what it is I can hardly tell you. Maybe it's something that the pines have."