And when the soft darkness was fully come, and the low murmuring voices of the night whispered from forest depth and mountain side, while the stars peered through the weaving of leaf and branch, and the ruddy light of their camp fire rose and fell, the man talked of the things that had gone into the making of his life.  As though he wished his mate to know him more fully than anyone else could know, he spoke of those personal trials and struggles, those disappointments and failures, those plans and triumphs of which men so rarely speak; of his boyhood and his boyhood home life, of his father and mother, of those hard years of his youth, and his struggle for an education that would equip him for his chosen life work; he told her many things that she had known only in a general way.

But most of all he talked of those days when he had first met her, and of how quickly and surely the acquaintance had grown into friendship, and then into a love which he dared not yet confess.  Smilingly he told how he had tried to convince himself that she was not for him.  And how, believing that she loved and would wed his friend, Lawrence Knight, he had come to the far West, to his work, and, if he could, to forget.

“But I could not forget, dear girl,” he said.  “I could not escape the conviction that you belonged to me, as I felt that I belonged to you.  I could not banish the feeling that some mysterious higher law—­the law that governs the mating of the beautifully free creatures that live in these hills—­had mated you and me.  And so, as I worked and tried to forget, I went on dreaming just the same.  It was that way when I first saw this place.  I was crossing the country on my way to examine some prospects for the company, and camped at this very spot.  And that evening I planned it all, just as it is to-night.  I put the tent there, and built our fire, and stretched your hammock under the tree, and sat with you in the twilight; but even as I dreamed it I laughed at myself for a fool, for I could not believe that the dream would ever come true.  And then, when I got back to Prescott, there was a letter from a Cleveland friend, telling me that Larry had gone abroad to be away a year or more, and another letter from the company, calling me East again.  And so I stopped at Cleveland and—­” He laughed happily.  “I know now that dreams do come true.”

“You foolish boy,” said Helen softly.  “To think that I did not know.  Why, when you went away, I was so sure that you would come for me again, that I never even thought that it could be any other way.  I thought you did not speak because you felt that you were too poor, because you felt that you had so little to offer, and because you wished to prove yourself and your work before asking me to share your life.  I did not dream that you could doubt my love for you, or think for a moment that there could ever be anyone else.  I felt that you must know; and so, you see, while I waited I had my dreams, too.”