"Why do you not light it yourself?" She drew away from his outstretched
hand. "It seems to me you are a bit of a tyrant in your own house."

He drew a match across his knee and held it towards her: by its gleam she
saw his pale, unsmiling face, and again that darkening of the eyes which
she remembered.

"Do you refuse me such a little thing,--my first guest? I ask it as a most
especial grace!"

She took the match, and knelt with it in her hands; but it only flickered a
moment, and went out. "It will not go for me. You must light it yourself."

He knelt beside her and struck another match. "We will try together," he
said, placing it in her fingers and closing his hand about them. He held
the trembling fingers and the little spark they guarded steadily against
the shaving. It kindled; the flame breathed and brightened and curled
upward among the crooked manzanita stumps, illuminating the two entranced
young faces bending before it. Miss Frances rose to her feet, and Arnold,
rising too, looked at her with a growing dread and longing in his eyes.

"You said to-day that you were happy, because in fancy you were at home. Is
that the only happiness possible to you here?"

"I am quite contented here," she said. "I am getting acclimated."

"Oh, don't be content: I am not; I am horribly otherwise. I want
something--so much that I dare not ask for it. You know what it
is,--Frances!"