"And I would say that my love is so far above the mean things of the world that they can't make it waver, and it is so unselfish that I can love you the more be-because you love your father and obey him. And all I ask is that you don't misunderstand me." There was deep meaning in his tones.
"Oh Dwight, my boy," she moaned, "it's an awful thing for a daughter to disobey her father. But it's more awful when she finds that he--" But he put his fingers tenderly on her lips, and when she kissed them, tears coursing on her cheeks, he gathered her close, and his lips did the service that his fingers retired from in tremulous haste.
"My little girl," he said, softly, "keep that story off your lips. It is too hard, too bitter. I may have said cruel things to your father. He may tell you they were cruel. But remember that she had your eyes and your face--that poor girl I found in the woods. And before God, if not before men, she is your sister. And so I gave of my heart and my strength to help her. And I know your heart so well, Elva, that I leave it all to you. It's better to be ashamed than to be unjust."
"She _is_ my sister," she answered, simply, but with earnestness there was no mistaking. "And you may leave it all in my hands."
Then fearfully, anxiously, grief and shame at shattered faith in a father showing in the face she lifted to him, she asked:
"It was he, was it not--the old man that took me away and sat before me and cursed me? He was her--her husband?"
His look replied to her. Then he said, soothingly: "It was not in our hands, dear. But that which is in our hands let us do as best we can, and so"--he kissed her, this time not as the lover, but as the faithful, earnest, consoling friend--"and so--to sleep! The morning's almost here, and it will bring a brighter day."
She drew his head down and pressed her lips to his forehead.
"True knighthood has come again," she murmured. "And my knight has taken me from the enchanted forest, and has shown me his heart--and the last was best."
Still clasping her, he shook the door and called to the girl within; and when she came, crying eager questions, he put Elva Barrett into her arms and left them together.
As he walked away from the shadow of the camp into the shimmer of the starlight he felt the wine of love coursing his veins. His muscles ached, weariness clogged his heels, but his eyes were wide-propped and his ears hummed as with a sound of distant music. His thoughts seemed too sacred to be taken just then into the company of other men. He dreaded to go inside out of the radiance of the night. He turned from the door of the main camp when his hand was fumbling for the latch, pulled his cap over his ears, and began a slow patrol on the glistening stretch of road before the wangan. The crisp snow sang like fairy bells under his feet. Orion dipped to the west, and the morning stars paled slowly as the flush crept up from the east. And still he walked and dreamed and gazed over the sombre obstacles near at hand in his life into the radiance of promise, even as he looked over the black spruces into the faint roses of the dawn.