The evening star, so
lonely and radiant, so cold and passionless in the dusky blue, had become
an object she waited for and watched, the same as she had come to love the
dreaming, murmuring melody of the waterfall. She lingered there. What had
the sights and sounds and smells of this wild canyon come to mean to her?
She could not say. But they had changed her immeasurably.
Her soft slippers made no sound on the porch, and as she turned the corner
of the house, where shadows hovered thick, she heard Lee Stanton's voice:
"But, Flo, you loved me before Kilbourne came."
The content, the pathos, of his voice chained Carley to the spot. Some
situations, like fate, were beyond resisting.
"Shore I did," replied Flo, dreamily. This was the voice of a girl who was
being confronted by happy and sad thoughts on her birthday.
"Don't you--love me--still?" he asked, huskily.
"Why, of course, Lee! I don't change," she said.
"But then, why--" There for the moment his utterance or courage failed.
"Lee, do you want the honest to God's truth?"
"I reckon--I do."
"Well, I love you just as I always did," replied Flo, earnestly. "But, Lee,
I love him more than you or anybody."
"My Heaven! Flo--you'll ruin us all!" he exclaimed, hoarsely.
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