himself--and, threshing through a patch
of high, strong weeds, we circled past an
amphitheatre of deadened trees whose
crooked arms were tossed out into the
moonlight, and halted on the spur. The
moon was poised over Morris's farm;
South Fork was shining under us like a
loop of gold, the mountains lay about in
tranquil heaps, and the moon-mist rose
luminous between them. There Grayson
turned to me with an eager light in
his eyes that I had never seen before.

``This has a new beauty to-night!''
he said; and then ``I told her about
you, and she said that she used to know
you--well.'' I was glad my face was in
shadow--I could hardly keep back a
brutal laugh--and Grayson, unseeing,
went on to speak of her as I had never
heard any man speak of any woman. In
the end, he said that she had just promised
to be his wife. I answered nothing.
Other men, I knew, had said that
with the same right, perhaps, and had
gone from her to go back no more.
And I was one of them. Grayson had
met her at White Sulphur five years
before, and had loved her ever since.
She had known it from the first, he