Led by curiosity as much as by the new masterfulness in his tone, Luella turned back a step and seated herself on the stile that led into the apple-orchard. The blossom-laden bough of a gnarly old tree bent over her head and sent a gust of fragrance past her that made her close her eyes an instant and draw a long breath, it was so heavenly sweet. The night was warm, but she drew her shawl around her erect, angular figure with a forbidding air that made it hard for him to begin. "Well?" she said stiffly. "I don't know just how it's goin' to strike you," he began, hesitating painfully. "That is--well, I don't know--maybe you won't take any interest in it, after all; but I kinder thought--something might happen in the meantime--maybe I'd better--" He gave a nervous little cough, unable to find the words. "What air you aiming at, anyhow, Baptist Sloan?" she demanded. "What's got your tongue? Mother'll wonder what's keeping me, so I wish you'd speak up and say what's on your mind, if there's anything a-troubling you." Then he blurted out his confession in a few short sentences, and waited. She sat staring at him through such a long silence that he forced an uneasy laugh. "I was afraid maybe you'd think it was foolish," he said dejectedly. "That's why I never could bring myself to speak of it all these years. I thought nobody'd understand--that they'd laugh at me for spendin' a fortune that way. But honest, Luella, it is sort o' sacred to me, and mother's words come to me so often that it's grown to be like one of the commandments to me." His voice sank almost to a whisper: "'Over the mountains and over the seas, and be baptized in that same river Jordan, where the dove descended.' It's been no small matter to live up to, either. Sometimes it seems to me as if I'd been sent out like the children of Israel, and it was goin' to take the whole forty years of wanderin' to reach my promised land. I've spent thirty of 'em in the wilderness of wantin' _you_, but I begin to see my way clearin' up now toward the end. Only twenty dollars more! I can go after wheat harvest and the threshin'. Good Lord, Luella, why don't you _say_ somethin'! But it's no use; I know you think I'm such an awful fool." She turned toward him in the dim moonlight, her eyes filled with tears. "Oh, Bap," she cried, "to think how everybody has misjudged you all this time! It's perfectly _grand_ of you, and I feel like a dawg when I remember all I've said about your not being a believer, when all the time you were better than any of us can ever hope to be. It's like being the martyrs and crusaders all at once, to stick to such an ambition through thick and thin. But oh, Bap, why _didn't_ you tell me long ago!" "Don't cry, Luella," he urged, awkwardly patting the shawl drawn around her thin shoulders. He was amazed and overwhelmed at this unprecedented revelation of tenderness in what had always been to him the most stony-hearted of natures.