“I!” She looked at him in surprise.
“Partly. You told me how things were going with them. That seemed to put it up to me to give Pelton a chance.”
“I certainly didn’t mean it that way. I had no right to ask you to do anything about it.”
“Mebbe it was the facts put it up to me. Anyhow, I felt responsible.”
“Mr. Roper once told me that you always feel responsible when you hear anybody is in trouble,” the young woman answered.
“Roper’s a goat. Nobody ever pays any attention to him.”
Presently they diverged from the road and sat down on a great flat rock which dropped out from the hillside like a park seat. For he was still far from strong and needed frequent rests. Their talk was desultory, for they had reached that stage of friendship at which it is not necessary to bridge silence with idle small talk. Here, by some whim of fate, the word was spoken. He knew he loved her, but he had not meant to say it yet.
But when her steady gray eyes came back to his after a long stillness, the meeting brought him a strange feeling that forced his hand.
“I love you, Laska. Will you be my wife?” he asked quietly.
“Yes, Sam,” she answered directly. That was all. It was settled with a word. There in the sunshine he kissed her and sealed the compact, and afterward, when the sun was low among the hill spurs, they went back happily to take up again the work that awaited them.