Page:Honore Willsie--Judith of the godless valley.djvu/348

 "I can't put it into words that will make it seem as big to you as it is to me, Judith. Tell me, have you been lonely all your life?"

"Yes. Very, very lonely. With the feeling that there was no one to understand."

"That's the way it's been with me, only I always knew that if you could care for me we could understand each other. I want to make you know me to-night, Jude. I want to fix my real self so in your mind that wherever you go, you'll have me with you."

"You did that long ago, Douglas," said Judith softly.

"Have I?" wistfully. "You see, Jude, you are so mixed up in my mind with Grandfather's dream of Lost Chief, and mine, and the preacher, and God, that I don't know myself where one leaves off and another begins. And to-night, one part of me is on fire with happiness and another is frozen with discouragement. Are you sure you can care for me, Judith?"

"Ever since that night in the hay-loft when you kissed me, after your father shot Swift. I didn't want to love you. There didn't seem much romance about a boy you'd lived with all your life. I didn't want to marry. I wanted to give all there was in me to some one big and fine enough to appreciate it. And after all, it's only you."

"Only me!" ejaculated Douglas, comically.

Judith did not smile. "I fought and fought against it. But every year I saw you growing into a bigger, finer man than Lost Chief ever had known—a lonely sort of a man, not afraid to be laughed at even when it was about a matter of religion. I hated to see you making a fool of yourself, and yet I admired you for it. You grew so straight and self -controlled, and Doug,