are I want—no more than you are. You, as you are now, are all that I care for in the world. Life is young for us both, yet. Let us grow up together—if you can love me. Can you?"

"I don't know."

"Can you not care for me a little, Molly?"

"I do. I know—nothing about—love—real love."

[Pg 123]"Can you not imagine it, dear?"

[Pg 123]

"I—it is what I have imagined—a man—like you—coming this way into my loneliness. I recognize it. I have dreamed that it was like this. What is it that I should do—if this is really to come true?"

"Love me."

"I would—if I knew how. I don't know how," she said wistfully. "My heart is so full—already—of your goodness—I—and then this dream I have dreamed—that a man like you should come here and say this to me——"

"Is it in you to love me?"

"I'll try—if you'll tell me what to do—how to show it—to understand——"

He drew her closer, unresisting, and looked deep into her young eyes, and [Pg 124]kissed them, and then her lips, till they grew warmer and her breath came fragrant and uneven.

[Pg 124]

"Can you love me?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"Are you sure?"

"Y-yes."

For a moment's exquisite silence she rested her flushed face against his shoulder, then lifted it, averted, and stepped aside, out of the circle of his arms. Head lowered, she stood there, motionless in the starlight, arms hanging straight; then, as he came to her, she lifted her proud little head and laid both her hands in his.

"Of those things," she said, "that a woman should be to the man she loves, and say to that man, I am ignorant. [Pg 125]Even how to speak to you—now—I do not know. It is all a dream to me—except that, 

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