Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/260

 He was sure that no other woman's kiss could so draw the soul out of him. Beth seemed only a shadow—like someone long dead whose personality is recalled with an effort.

This was love—this was the sort of feeling the Creator intended men and women to have for each other—mysterious, inexplicable, yet real as Nature. It was as it should be. These thoughts passed through Disston's mind swiftly. Up there on top of the world, in the moonlight, any consideration which interfered seemed trifling and indefensible.

"You do love me?" He held her off a little and looked at her. He did not doubt it—he merely wanted to hear her say it.

She replied simply:

"Yes, Hughie. I have always."

"You're so unexpectedly sweet!" he cried, as he again drew her close to him. "I've never forgotten that about you." He laughed softly as he added, " I can't understand why everyone that knows you isn't in love with you."

"There's no one else who has ever seen this side of me. I am not even likable to most people."

"It isn't so! But if it were, it doesn't make any difference, for you're going to marry me—you're going home with me and live a woman's life—the kind for which you were intended."

The radiance that illuminated her face transformed and glorified it.

She was woman—all woman, at heart—he had not been mistaken, he thought rapturously as he looked at her.

She stared at him wide-eyed, dazzled by the picture as she breathed rather than whispered: