“My Heavens!” she said; and setting the tray down, she rushed to him. She helped him back to his chair, and covered him again. He had suffered no hurt, but she clung to him; and presently he moved and let himself kiss her with fuller passion. “I will be good,” he whispered. “You must,” she said. “You looked so pale!” “You are speakin’ low like me,” he answered. “But we have no dream we can wake from.” Had she surrendered on this day to her cow-puncher, her wild man? Was she forever wholly his? Had the Virginian’s fire so melted her heart that no rift in it remained? So she would have thought if any thought had come to her. But in his arms to-day, thought was lost in something more divine. XXIX. WORD TO BENNINGTON They kept their secret for a while, or at least they had that special joy of believing that no one in all the world but themselves knew this that had happened to them. But I think that there was one person who knew how to keep a secret even better than these two lovers. Mrs. Taylor made no remarks to any one whatever. Nobody on Bear Creek, however, was so extraordinarily cheerful and serene. That peculiar severity which she had manifested in the days when Molly was packing her possessions, had now altogether changed. In these days she was endlessly kind and indulgent to her “deary.” Although, as a housekeeper, Mrs. Taylor believed in punctuality at meals, and visited her offspring with discipline when they were late without good and sufficient excuse, Molly was now exempt from the faintest hint of reprimand. “And it’s not because you’re not her mother,” said George Taylor, bitterly. “She used to get it, too. And we’re the only ones that get it. There she comes, just as we’re about ready to quit! Aren’t you going to say NOTHING to her?” “George,” said his mother, “when you’ve saved a man’s life it’ll be time for you to talk.” So Molly would come in to her meals with much irregularity; and her remarks about the imperfections of her clock met with no rejoinder. And yet one can scarcely be so severe as had been Mrs. Taylor, and become wholly as mild as milk. There was one recurrent event that could invariably awaken hostile symptoms in the dame. Whenever she saw a letter arrive with the Bennington postmark upon it, she shook her fist at that letter. “What’s family pride?” she would say to herself. “Taylor could be a Son of the Revolution if he’d a mind to. I wonder if she has told her folks yet.”