“We miss you down at the house,” said Judith suddenly.

Douglas’ heart suddenly lifted.  There was a sweetness in Judith’s voice that he never before had heard there.

“I miss you, Judith!  Every moment of the day I’m missing you.  The ache for you in my heart is as much a part of my life as my very heart-throbs.”

“I wish you wouldn’t, Douglas!  I wish you wouldn’t!  I’m not ready to talk of those things!”

“What do you mean, Judith?”

“I mean that I don’t see love as you see it; that even if I did care for any one, I’m not ready to give way to it.”

She paused as if she too were struggling to express the inarticulate.  “O, I am so disappointed in life!  It isn’t at all what I thought it would be!  People aren’t what I dreamed they were.  Everything is hard and rough and difficult.  I don’t like life a bit!”

“I don’t like it as it is, either,” agreed Douglas.  “That’s why I’m trying to change it, here in Lost Chief.  But I wouldn’t change my love for you, no matter how it hurts.  That’s the one beautiful thing in Lost Chief and in me.”

He turned to the face, so dimly rebellious, so vaguely sweet in the dark, and his whole soul was in his steady deep voice.

“Judith, won’t you marry me?  You are my whole life!”

Judith’s voice rose passionately.  “Don’t talk about it!  Don’t!  I don’t believe in marriage.  I tell you I don’t, Douglas!”

“Why not?”

“I’ve told you again and again.  Marriage is too hard on a woman.  Why should I want to cook your meals and darn your socks and wash your clothes for you the rest of my life?  Yes, and listen to you swear and lay down the law and spit tobacco juice?  And when I’m a little older and beginning to get knotty with the hard work, see you take notice of girls who are younger and prettier than I. No, Doug!”

“O, love isn’t like that!” exclaimed Douglas vehemently.

“My love won’t be like that, I can tell you!” The excitement still was evident in Judith’s voice.  “I’m not going to kill it, by marrying.”

“I wish that Inez were dead and in hell!” cried Douglas, with such an accumulation of bitterness in his voice that Judith drew a quick breath.  “And I wish I could quit loving you!  I tried my best to, all the time I was at Charleton’s.  But I can’t!  It just grows as I grow and every day it’s a bigger pain and trouble to me.  I wish I could have peace!”

“I wish I could have it myself!” ejaculated the girl.  She rose suddenly.  “I’m so tired of this burning struggle.  But I won’t settle down to being an old horse on a ranch.  I will do something that gives me a chance to use my brain.  I will!”

She leaped into the saddle.

Douglas seized the mare’s bridle.  “Just what do you mean by being tired of a burning struggle?” he demanded tensely.  “Are you caring for somebody, Jude?”

“Let me go, Douglas,” said Judith.