At the mention of his name, Kitty’s eyes grew bright again.  Thanks to her intimate friend and schoolmate, Helen Manning, she knew much more of Lawrence Knight than that gentleman supposed.

“But, tell me,” she asked curiously, trembling with suppressed excitement, “why is Mr. Lawrence Knight masquerading here as the cowboy Honorable Patches?”

He answered earnestly.  “I know it must seem strange to you, dear, but the simple truth is that I became ashamed of myself and my life of idle uselessness.  I determined to see if I could take my place among men, simply as a man.  I wanted to be accepted by men for myself, for my manhood, if you like, and not because of my—­” he hesitated, then said frankly—­“my money and social position.  I wanted to depend upon myself—­to live as other men live, by my own strength and courage and work.  If I had given my real name, when I asked for work at the Cross-Triangle—­someone would have found me out before very long, and my little experiment would have failed, don’t you see?”

While he spoke, Kitty’s excited mind had caught at many thoughts.  She believed sincerely that her girlhood love for Phil was dead.  This man, even as Patches the cowboy, with a questionable shadow on his life, had compelled her respect and confidence, while in his evident education and social culture he had won her deepest admiration.  She felt that he was all that Phil was, and more.  There was in her feeling toward him, as he offered himself to her now, no hint of that instinctive repulsion and abhorrence with which she had received Professor Parkhill’s declaration of spiritual affinity.  Her recent experience with the Master of Aesthetics had so outraged her womanly instincts that the inevitable reaction from her perplexed and troubled mind led her to feel more deeply, and to be drawn more strongly, toward this man with whom any woman might be proud to mate.  At the same time, the attractions of the life which she knew he could give her, and for which she longed so passionately, with the relief of the thought that her parents would not need to sacrifice themselves for her, were potent factors in the power of Lawrence Knight’s appeal.

“It would be wonderful,” she said musingly.  “I have dreamed and dreamed about such things.”

“You will come with me, dear?  You will let me give you your heart’s wish—­you will go with me into the life for which you are so fitted?”

“Do you really want me, Patches?” she asked timidly, as though in her mind there was still a shadow of doubt.

“More than anything in the world,” he urged.  “Say yes.  Kitty.  Say that you will be my wife.”

The answer came softly, with a hint of questioning, still.

“Yes.”

Kitty did not notice that the man had not spoken of his love for her.  There were so many other things for her to consider, so many other things to distract her mind.  Nor did the man notice that Kitty herself had failed to speak in any way that little word, which, rightly understood, holds in its fullest, deepest meaning, all of life’s happiness—­of labor and accomplishment—­of success and triumph—­of sacrifice and sorrow; holds, in its fullest, deepest meaning, indeed, all of life itself.