"What's the use of denying it?" he said. "I don't believe in deception, even in small things. It never does any good. I did have work to do down there, but I couldn't go on with it, Virginia, while you were here brooding as you are over your mother's condition. So I stayed at my desk till the north-bound train was ready to pull out. Then I made a break for it, catching the last car as it whizzed past the crossing near the office. The train was delayed on the way up, and after I got to Darley I was afraid I couldn't get a horse at the stable and get here before you were in bed; but you see I made it. Sam Hicks will blow me up about the lather his mare is in. I haven't long to stay here, either, for I must get back to Darley to catch the ten-forty. I'll reach the office about four in the morning, if I can get the conductor to slow up in the Atlanta switch-yard for me to hop off at the crossing."
"And you did all that simply to tell me about my mother?" Virginia said. "Why, she could have written."
"Yes, but seeing some one right from the spot is more satisfying," he said, with embarrassed lightness. "I wanted to tell you how she was, and I'm glad, whether you are or not."
"I'm glad to hear from her," said Virginia. "It is only because I did not want to put you to so much trouble."
"Don't bother about that, Virginia. I'd gladly do it every night in the week to keep you from worrying. Do you remember the day, long ago, that I came to you down at the creek and told you I was dissatisfied with things here, and was going away off to begin the battle of life in earnest?"
"Yes, I remember," Virginia answered, almost oblivious of the clinging, invisible current which seemed to be sweeping them together.
He drew a deep breath, as if to take in courage for what he had to say, and then went on:
"You were only a little girl then, hardly thirteen, and yet to me, Virginia, you were a woman capable of the deepest feeling. I never shall forget how you rebuked me about leaving my mother in anger. You looked at me as straight and frank as starbeams, and told me you'd not desert your mother in her old age for all the world. I never forgot what you said and just the way you said it, and through all my turbulent life out West your lecture was constantly before me. I was angry at my mother, but finally I got to looking at her marriage differently, and then I began to want to see her and to do my filial duty as you were doing yours. That was one reason I came back here. The other was because—Virginia, it was because I wanted to see you."
"Oh, don't, don't begin—" but Virginia's protest died away in her pulsing throat. She lowered her head and covered her hot face with her hands.
"But I have begun, and I must go on," he said. "Out West I met hundreds of attractive women, but I could never look upon them as other men did because of the—the picture of you stamped on my brain. I was not hearing a word about you, but you were becoming exactly what I knew you would become; and when I saw you out there in the barn-yard that first day after I got back, my whole being caught fire, and it's blazing yet—it will blaze as long as there is a breath of my life left to fan it. For me there can be but one wife, little girl, and if she fails me I'll go unmarried to my grave."