“Do you refuse me such a little thing,—my first guest? I ask it as a most especial grace!”
She took the match, and knelt with it in her hands; but it only flickered a moment, and went out. “It will not go for me. You must light it yourself.”
He knelt beside her and struck another match. “We will try together,” he said, placing it in her fingers and closing his hand about them. He held the trembling fingers and the little spark they guarded steadily against the shaving. It kindled; the flame breathed and brightened and curled upward among the crooked manzanita stumps, illuminating the two entranced young faces bending before it. Miss Frances rose to her feet, and Arnold, rising too, looked at her with a growing dread and longing in his eyes.
“You said to-day that you were happy, because in fancy you were at home. Is that the only happiness possible to you here?”
“I am quite contented here,” she said. “I am getting acclimated.”
“Oh, don't be content: I am not; I am horribly otherwise. I want something—so much that I dare not ask for it. You know what it is,—Frances!”
“You said once that I reminded you—of her: is that the reason you—Am I consoling you?”
“Good God! I don't want consolation! That thing never existed; but here is the reality; I cannot part with it. I wish you had as little as I have, outside of this room where we two stand together!”
“I don't know that I have anything,” she said under her breath.
“Then,” said he, taking her in his arms, “I don't see but that we are ready to enter the kingdom of heaven. It seems very near to me.”