The Ozark spectator., 1917-05-16
CHAPTER XVII.
Danger.

Danger.
 When she tiptoed into her uncle's room at midnight, Mans heart beat as the wings of bird beat from the broken door of cage into a forbidden sky of happiness. She had left the room girl; she returned a woman.
 Sleep she did not expect or even ask for; the night was all too short to think of those tense, fearful moments that had pledged her to her lover. When the anxieties of her situation overwhelmed her. as they would again and again. she felt herself In the arms of this strange. resolute man whom all her own hated md whom she knew she already loved beyond all power to put away. In her heart, she hnd tried this more than once-shc knew she could not, would not. ever do 1t, or even try to do 1t, again.
 She rejoiced in his love. She trusted. When he spoke she believed this man whom no one around her would be- 1ieve: and she. who never had believed what other men avowed, and who de- tested their avowals, believed De Spain. and secretly. guiltily. glowed in every word of hts devotion and breathed faint In its every caress.
 Night could hardly come fast enough. after the next long day. A hundred times during that day she reminded herself while the slow. majestic sun shone simmering on the hot desert, that she had promised to steal out into the grounds the minute darkness fell he would be waiting. A hundred times in the long afternoon Nan looked into the cloudless western sky and with puny. eager hands would have pushed the tagging orb on its course that she might sooner give herself into the arms where she felt her place so sure, her honor safe her helplessness so pro- tected. herself so loved.
 How her cheeks burned after supper when she asked her uncle for leave to post letter downtown! How breath less with apprehension she halted as De Spain stepped from the shadow of the trees and drew her importunately beneath them for the kiss that had burned on her troubled lips all day 1! How, girl-like. knowing his caresses were all her own-knowing she could at an instant call forth enough to smother her-she tyrannized his inn pertaining, and like q lovely mlser, hoarded her responsiveness under calm eye and laconic whispers until, when she did give back his eagerness, she made his senses reel.
 How dreamlly she listened to every word he let fall in his outpouring of devotion; how gravely she put up her hand to restrain his busy intrusion, and asked If he knew that no man in the world, least of all her fierce and burly cousin, had ever touched her lips until he himself forced kiss on them the night before. And now!" She hid her face against his shoulder. "Oh, Henry. how I love you! I'm so ashamed couldn't tell you if 1t weren't night; I'll never look you in the face again in the daytime"
 And when he told her how little he himself had had to do with, and how little he knew about girls, even from boyhood, how she feigned not to be- lieve, and believed him still! They were two children raised in the magic of an hour 10 the supreme height of life and dizzy together on Its summit.
 "I don't see how you can care for me. Henry. Oh. I mean it," she pro- tested. holding her head resolutely up. "You know who we are, away off there in the mountains. Everyone hates us. l suppose they've plenty of reason to-: we hate everybody else. And why shouldn't wei We're at war with ev- eryone. You know, better than l do. whnt goes on in the gnp. l don't want 10 know; try not to know; Uncle Duke tries to keep things from me that day on Music-I couldn't believe you meant 1t at all. And yet-Im afraid liked to try to think you did. Whcn you looked at mo felt as if you could see right through me-"
 Condolences never came to an end.
 And diplomacy came into its own d. most at once In Dc Spain's efforts to improve his relations with the impla- cable Duke. The day came when Mans uncle could be taken home. De Spain sent to him soft-spokcn emissary. Bob Scott. offering to provide n light stage. with his compliments. for the trip. The intractablc mountalnecr. with his refusal to accept tho olive branch. blew Rob out of the room.