Show SYNOPSIS E la id maitland Malt land a frank free and un polled spoiled young philadelphia girl la Is taken to the colorado mountains by her her uncle robert maitland Malt land james armstrong maitland Malt land s falls in love with her his persistent wooing thrills the girl but she hesitates and armstrong goes east on business without a definite answer anid hears bears the story of a mining engi neer newbold whose wife tell fell off a cl ft ff end was so seriously hurt that he was compelled to shoot her to prevent her be in ing eaten by wolves while he went for help help barkby the old gu de who tells the tory story ve gives ves enid a package of letters which he says were found on the dead woman s body S a reads the letters and nt it kirkby s request keeps them while bathing in mountain stream enid Is at tacked by a bear wl ich la Is mysteriously shot A storm adds to the girls girl s terror A sudden deluge transform brook into raging torrent wilch wl ich sweeps enid into gorge where rhe Is rescued by a moun tain hermit after a thrilling experience campers in great contusion confusion upon dincov ing enid s absence when the storm breaks maitland maitland Malt land and old kirkby go in search of the girl enid d that her ankle Is sprained and that she is un able to walk alk her mysterious rescuer parries her to his camp enid goes to sleep in tl ti e strange man s bunk miner cooks breakfast for enid after they go on tour of inspection the her wit tells en d of his unsuccessful attempt to find the maitland Malt land campers he admits that he I 1 also from philadelphia the hermit falls in ione lo 10 e with end en d CHAPTER XIV continued having little else to do she studied 1111 the man and she studied him noth ath a 4 warm desire and an enthusiastic pre disposition to find the best in him she would not have been a human girl it if she had not been thrilled to the very J heart of her by what the man had done for her she recognized hat whether he asserted it or not he had tad established an everlasting and indisputable claim upon her the circumstances of their first which as the days passed did not seem quite so horrible to her and yet a thought ot of which would bring the blood to her cheek still on the instant had in some way turned her bar over to him his con of her his gracious tenderness to ward her his absolute abnegation his evident overwhelming desire to please her to make the anomalous situation 4 in n which they stood to each other sc bearable in spite of their lonely and unobserved intimacy by an absolute lack of presumption on his part all those things touched her profoundly I 1 although she did not recognize the tact fact then perhaps she loved him from the moment her eyes had opened in the mist and rain after that awful battle in the he torrent to see him bend 1 ing over her no sight that had ever met enid JI altland s eyes was 0 o glorious so awe inspiring so uplifting and mag ent as de ane view from the verge ot of the cliff in the sunlight of some bright winter morning few women had ever enjoyed such privileges as hers she did not know whether she liked the winter crowned range best that way or whether she preferred the snowy world glittering cold in the moonlight or even whether it was more attractive when it was dark and the peaks and drifts were only light ed by the stars which shone never so brightly as just above her head when he allowed her she loved to stand sometimes in the full fury of the gale with the wind shrieking and sobbing ike 1 ke lost souls in some icy inferno through the hills and over the pines the snow beating upon her the sleet cu ting ong her bar face if she dared to turn toward the storm generally rally he aest her alone in the quieter moments but in the tempest he hd stood watchful on guard by her side buttressing her protecting her sheltering her indeed his presence then was as necessary n without him she could sear scarce a have maintained a footing the force of the wind might have hurled her down the mountain but for his strong arm when the cold grew too great he led 4 her back carefully to the hut and the warm fire ah yes life and the world were both beautiful to her then in night in day by sunlight by mooil in calm and storm yet it made no dit dif ference what was spread before the comans nomans ees what glorious picture was exhibited to her gaze she could not look at it more than a moment without thinking of the man with the most fascinating panorama that the earth earths s surface could spread before human vision to engage her at she looked into her own heart and saw there this man oh she had fought against it at first but lately she had luxuriated in it she loved him she loved him and why nota what is it that worn wom en n love in ment men strength of bodye she could remember yet how he had carried her over the mountains in the midst of the storm how she had been so bravely by his arms to his heart she realized later what a task that had been what a feat of 0 strength the uprooting of that sapling and the overturning of that huge grizzly were child a play to the long portage up the almost impassable canon and mountain side which bad had brought her to this dear haven was ras it strength of character she t n determination 9 1 this man had deliberately withdrawn from the world buried himself in this mountain and had stayed there deaf to the alluring call of man or woman he had had the courage to do that was it strength of mind she ad mireda enid maitland was no mean judge of the mental powers of her acquaintance she was just as full of life and spirit and the joy of them as an any y oung young woman should be but she had not been trained by and thrown with the best for nothing noblesse ISo blesse oblige that his was a mind well stored with knowledge of the most varied sort she easily and at once perceived of course the popular books of the last five years had passed him by and of such he knew nothing but he could talk intelligently inter es tingly entertainingly upon the great classics keats and shakespeare were his most thumbed volumes he had graduated from harvard as a civil engineer with the highest honors of his class and school and the youngest man to get hie his sheepskin enid mait land herself was a woman of broad culture and wide reading and she de literately libera tely set herself to fathom this anians man s capabilities not infrequently much to her sur surprise sometimes to her dismay but generally to her sat is faction she found that she had no plummet with which to sound his greater depths did she seek in him that fine flow er of good bie bleeding eding gentleness and consideration 9 where could she find these qualities better displayed 7 she was absolutely alone with this man entirely in his power shut off from the world and its interference as et ef factually as it the them had both been abandoned in an ice floe at the north pole or cast away on some lonely is land in the south seas yet she felt as safe as if it she had been in her own house or her uncle uncles s with every pro lection that human power could give he had never presumed upon the sit nation us f ion in the least degree he never once referred to the circumstances of OC their meeting in the remotest way he never even discussed her rescue from the flood he never told her how he had borne her through the rain to FT cywa ae 0 ce retaa j fodran k jbf and C majc 0 ma rn a va yc c e I 1 abor S aw v Z 4 ff efem U 0 yi acy I 1 y its crown of sunny hair rising above the rushing water he bad had listened to the roar of the wind through the long nights when she thought him asleep it if she thought of him at all and heard again the scream of khz the storm that had brought her to his arms no snow drop that touched his cheek when he was abroad but reminded him of that night in the cold rain when he had held her clow and carried her on he could not sit and mend her boot without kemem bering that white foot before which he would tain fain have prostrated him self and upon which he would have pressed passionate kisses it if he had given way to his desires but he kept all these things in his heart pon dered dared them and made no sign did she ask beauty in her lovert lover ah ali there at last he failed accord ing to the canons of perfection he did not measure up to the standard his features were irregular his chin a trifle too square his mouth 19 thought too firm his brow wrinkled a little but he was good to look at for he looked strong he looked clean and he looked true there was about him too that stamp of practical ef that men who can do things always have you looked at him and you felt sure that what he undertook that he would accomplish that de cislon and capability were incarnate in him but after all the things are said love goes where it Is sent and I 1 at least am not the sender this woman loved this man belth er because nor in spite of these qualities that they were might account for her affection but it if they had not been it may be that that af faction that that passion would have her heart still no one can say no one can tell how or why those things are she had loved him while she raged against him and hat ed him she did neither the one n r the other of those two last things thing now and she loved mm him the mor low mystery is a preat great mover there la Is nothing ko 0 o attractive as a problem we cannot solve the very situation of ell z YO 10 az M 11 she loved to stand in the full fury of the gale the lonely shelter of the hills and in no way did be he say anything that the most keenly scrutinizing mind would torture into an allusion to the pool and the bear and the woman the fineness of his breeding was never so well exhibited as in this reticence more often than not it is what he does not rather than what he does that indicates the man it would be folly to deny that he never thought of these things had he forgotten them there would be no merit in his silence but to kemem ber her them and to beep keep still aye that showed the man I 1 he would close h s eyes in that little room on the other side of the door and see again the dark pool her white shoulders hei graceful arms the lovely face with f 04 IL the man how he came there what he did there why he remained there questions to which she had yet no answerl answer stimulated her profoundly because she did not know she ques cloned in secret interest was aroused and the transition to love v vas as easy propinquity too is responsible for many an affection the ivy clings to the first met tree given ghen a man and woman heart tree free and throw them together and let there he be decent kindness on both sides and it is a al moat most inevitable that each shall love the other isolate them from the world let them see no other compan ions tons but the one man and the one woman and the result becomes more inevitable yes this woman loved this roan il she said in her heart and I 1 am not one to dispute her conclusions that she would have loved him had he been one among millions to stand before her and it was true he was the complement of her nature they differed in temperament as much as in complexion and yet in those dif ferencek feren ces aa as must always be to make perfect cove ove and perfect union there were striking resemblances necessary points of contact there was no reason whatever why enid maitland Malt land should not love this man the only possible check cheek upon her feelings would rould have been her rather anomalous relation to arm strong but she relec rejected ted that she had promised him definitely nothing when she had met him she had been heart whole he had made some im press preshion pre sion fon upon her fancy and might have made more with greater opportune opp ity but unfortunately for him hir luckily tor for her he had not enjoyed that that eriv eriv 0 I 1 I 1 71 the dark face of H a wife rose before him 11 II liege she scarcely thought of him longer bhe she would not have been human II 11 her mind had not dwek dwelt upon the world beyond the skyline on the oth er side of the range she knew how those who loved her must be suffering on account of her di disappearance appearance but knowing herself safe and realizing that within a short time when the spring came again she would go back to them and that their mourning would be turned into joy by he ar rhal she could not concern herself very greatly over their present feel ings and emotions and besides what would be the use of worrying over those things there was metal more attractive tor for her thoughts close at hand and she was too blissfully happy to entertain for more than a moment any sorrow she pictured often her return and neer neier b any chance did she think of going back to civilization alone the man she loed would be by her side the church a blessing would make them one to do her justice in the simplicity and purity of her thoughts she never once thought of what the world might say about that long win ter sojourn alone with ith this man she was so conscious of her own inno cence and of his do delicate licate forbearance she never once thought now humanity would raise its eyes and fairly cry upon her from the house tops she did not realize that were she ever so pure and so innocent she could not now or ever reach the high position which caesar who was none too rep mutable himself would fain have haw his wife enjoy CHAPTER XV the man a heart isow now love produces both happiness and unhappiness but on the whole I 1 think the happiness predominates for love itself it if it be true and high Is its own reward love may feel itself y and may shrink even from the unlatching of the shoe lace of the beloved yet it joys in its own exist ence ne nevertheless of course its greatest satisfaction Is in the return 11 11 but there is a sweetness even in the despair of the truly loving enid maitland Malt land however did not have to endure indifference or fight against a R passion which met with no response tor for this man loved her with a love that was greater even than her own the moon in the trite abhor ism looks on many brooks the brook sees no moon but the one above him in the heavens in one sense his merit in winning her affection for him self from the hundreds of 0 men she knew was the greater in many years he had bad only seen this one woman naturally she should be everything to him she represented to him not only the woman noman but womankind he ile had been a boy practically when he had buried burled himself in those mountains and in all that time he had seen no body like enid maitland Malt land every ar aument which had been exploited to show why she should love him could be turned about to account for his passion for her they are not necess ary they are all supererogatory idle words to him also love had been born in an hour it had flashed into existence as if from the flat of the divine oh he had fought against it like the cre eremites mites of old he had been scourged into the desert by remorse and another passion but time had done its work the woman he first loved had ministered not to the spir igual side of the man or if she had so ministered in any degree it was be cause he had looked at her with a glamour of inexperience and youth during those five years of solitude of study and of reflection the truth had gradually unrolled itself before him conclusions vastly at variance with what he had ever believed possible as to the woman upon whom he had first bestowed his heart had got into his being and were in solution there this present woman was the precipitant which brought them to life he ile knew now what the old appeal of his wife had bad been he ile knew now what the new appeal of this woman was in humanity two things in life are inextricably intermingled body and soul inhere VI here the function of one be gins and the function of the other ends no one Is able to say in all human passions are admixtures of the earth earthy we are born the sons of old |