It was eleven o’clock when they reached Quentin, and Mr. Cameron was pacing the porch impatiently, peering out into the blackness where the moonlight pierced it, as they rode up to the shack.
“We are all safe, father; we merely took a wrong turning,” Jean called aloud as they drew rein.
“Yes,” observed Mr. Cameron with a stubborn ring in his voice. “I was afraid that you had.”
Jean perceived her father’s frame of mind instantly, and the Cameron in her rose to meet the Cameron in him.
“We have spent a very agreeable afternoon, however,” she said in clear, determined tones; “at least I have, so I can scarcely regret our adventure, though I am sorry to have caused you anxiety.”
To Loring’s surprise, instead of slipping out of her saddle as she had done before, she waited for him to lift her down. As he did so, she felt his lips brush her sleeve. It was done after the fashion of a devotee, not of a lover, yet the girl’s pulses bounded with a sense of elation and power. She held a man’s soul in her hands. Yes, she knew now with a sense of certainty what she had only suspected before,—that Loring loved her. How she felt herself, how much response the man’s passion had power to call out in her, she took no time to think; but she resolved to use this new power for his good. It should be the beginning of better things than he had ever known. Oh, yes, love could do anything. She had always heard that.
That night Loring, too, would have sworn that the turning point in his life had come, that never again could he prove unworthy of the trust in him which had shone from Jean Cameron’s eyes and pulsed in the strong clasp of her hand. A woman’s faith had saved other men worse than he. Why could he not surely rely upon its power to save him, too?
One who knew him well might have answered: “Because you are both too strong and too weak to be saved by anything from without. Your regeneration, if it comes, will come from no such gentle approaches and soft appeals, but through the stress and storm of deep experience, through the struggle and agony of overwhelming remorse. So it must be with some men.”