He could hear the throbbing of her heart and
her quick, excited breathing as she stopped, one of her hands clasping
him nervously by the arm.
"It is not very far--from here," she whispered "You must not go with me.
If they saw me with you--at this hour--" He felt her shuddering
against him.
"Only a little farther," he begged.
She surrendered again, hesitatingly, and they went on, more slowly than
before, until they came to where a few faint lights in the camp were
visible ahead of them.
"Now--now you must go!"
Howland turned as if to obey. In an instant the girl was at his side.
"You have not promised," she entreated. "Will you go--to-morrow?"
In the luster of the eyes that were turned up to him in the gloom
Howland saw again the strange, sweet power that had taken possession of
his soul. It did not occur to him in these moments that he had known
this girl for only a few hours, that until to-night he had heard no word
pass from her lips. He was conscious only that in the space of those few
hours something had come into his life which he had never known before;
and a deep longing to tell her this, to take her sweet face between his
hands, as they stood in the gloom of the forest, and to confess to her
that she had become more to him than a passing vision in a strange
wilderness filled him.
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