There was silence in the quiet woods for a moment.

"It ain't Sile Dobson?" he asked fearfully at last.

Dawn's laugh burst out softly then.

"Oh, Dan! You know better than that. You knew without asking. How could any one love him? No, Dan; the one I belong to is fine and grand and n.o.ble-everything he ought to be."

"Then, why doesn't he take care of you?" burst forth Dan indignantly.

"I wouldn't let you teach school if you belonged to me, and I wouldn't let that fellow frighten you. He can't be all you say, or he'd take care of you."

Dawn's cheeks were very red.

"He doesn't know where I am," she said softly. "I went away because-well, it was for a good reason. It was for his sake. I had to go. Things had happened. I can't tell you about it, but it would have made him trouble if I had stayed."

Dan sat looking at her steadily, a great, wistful yearning in his eyes.

"I guess you're wrong 'bout that," he said thoughtfully. "I guess he'd rather have you _an'_ the trouble, than to have no trouble without you.

Leastways, I would, an' ef he don't love you that way, he ain't much account."

A troubled look came into Dawn's eyes. It was the first time she had questioned, from Charles's standpoint, the wisdom of her running way.

"It would have made a lot of trouble all around," she said, shaking her head doubtfully.

"Say, look here!" said Dan, sitting up suddenly. "You tell me where that fellow is, an' I'll go tell him all about you, and how that other fellow is worrying you, and how you need him to take care o' you; an' then if he don't seem to want to find you and look out for you, why, I won't tell him where you are. I'll come back and take care of you myself, any way. You needn't like me nor anything if you don't want to, but I ain't going to stand having you off running around the world, frightened of that fellow all the time, not if I have to chop him up myself. I tell you, I _love_ you!"

Dan's blue eyes were flashing, and his cheeks were red with determination. He had let go of her hand as if it were a gracious favor she had bestowed upon him for the moment in his dire distress, and he had no right to keep it, but Dawn put it out again and laid it on his gently.

"Daniel, you are my dear friend for always, and I am glad to feel that you would take care of me if you could, but truly there is nothing you can do. I would not have you go to him for the world. He must not know where I am, nor be troubled ever by any thought of me. It was for that I came away. You would grieve me more than I can tell you if you did.

I want him to forget me, because it could only make him trouble if he found me. He would _have_ to come to me. He would want to come, I know, if you told him. But I don't want him to come. You don't understand, of course, and I mustn't tell you any more, only there is nothing can be done but for me to go away and find a place somewhere where no one can find me. Then people will forget, and I shall not bring any trouble or disgrace on him-though it wasn't at all my fault," she added. "I want you to know that, Daniel."

"Of course," growled Dan, looking down at the little hand on his as if it were an angel's and might be wafted away with a breath. "But I'm going with you myself, then, and see you to some safe place."

"Oh, but you mustn't, Dan. I couldn't let you. It wouldn't be right, you know. People would think it very strange."

"People needn't know anything about it. I don't need to talk to you. I can keep far enough away to see that no one hurts you, till you get a good, safe place."

"But, Dan, the folks at your home? They would think we had gone away together! I do not want them to think wrong of me, even if I'm not there to bear it."

Dan was baffled. He saw at once that it would not do. He must go back and bear the loneliness and the thought of her fighting her own battles.

"Well, I'll go with you now, any way," he said at last, with determination. "I'll see you safe to some coach somewhere, an' come back in the night. I can get to my room without Mother hearing me. She never worries about me now any more, an' don't stay awake to listen for me. She'll never know when I get in. I'll go back an' tell 'em I helped carry your bag across country to Cherry Valley coach, or somewhere. I've got the parson's letter here in my pocket. That villain came to the school-house after you, an' I picked up the letter so he wouldn't see it."

"Oh, did he come to the school after me? Then perhaps he has followed us. Dan, I must go quickly!"

"Come on," said Dan, as though he were proposing to walk to his death.

At least, he was not to leave her yet. He picked up her bag, and helped her to her feet; then, still holding the hand by which he had helped her up, he bent over and kissed it reverently. Then he straightened up with a royal look of manhood in his eyes and turned to her:

"You won't mind that just once, will you? That hand did a whole lot fer me, beginning when it gave me that first licking."

Dawn smiled sadly. Then with sudden impulse she reached up, caught his face between her hands, drew it down to her own, and gently, seriously, kissed him upon the forehead as if it were a sacred rite.

"I love you, Dan," she said. "I'm so sorry it can't be the kind of love you want. But I'll be your dear friend always. I never had a brother.

Perhaps I might call you my brother. It would be nice to have a brother like you. You have been very, _very_ good to me, and I shall never forget it."

Dan looked at her as if she had laid a benediction upon him. After all, he was young, and it was much to have her friendship. And if another had her love, at least he, Daniel, was on the spot and might help her now, which went a great way toward making him feel better about the other fellow. The boy had begun to have a lurking pity for him, besides. And who was he, Daniel, that he should hope to hold a girl like this for himself? It was much that he had known her. It was right that she should have a lover such as she had described-"fine and grand and n.o.ble." Almost the great heart of the boy-lover felt he could take them both in and care for them, and bring them together, perhaps-who knew?

They hurried through the woods, the boy directing the way now, and she depending upon him. He decided that It would be well for her to take a certain stage line that could be reached only by a good walk of several miles across the country. He knew the way, and she was only too glad to have a guide.

That was Dan's great day of happiness. For years afterward he remembered every little incident. He seemed to know while it was all happening that it was a special gift granted him in view of the sorrow and sacrifice he must pa.s.s through. His was no pa.s.sing love of a boy.

He realized that the girl beside him was one in a thousand, and that it was enough for a lifetime just to have known her, and to be able to remember one such perfect afternoon as this.

To Dawn, it was given to understand her power for that brief season, and to use it to its utmost for the boy's good. She talked to him earnestly about himself and his future, and urged him to make the utmost of every opportunity. She made him understand that he had the gift of leading others, and that some day he might take a great stand in the world for some cause of Right against Wrong, when others would flock to his standard and let him lead them to victory. It was an unusual thing that a girl like Dawn should see his possibilities and point him to a great ambition, but Dawn was an unusual girl.

Some girls, even though they might have done no real wrong, would have taken advantage of the boy's confessed love, and have coquetted with him. Dawn treated him with the utmost gentleness, as if she understood the pain she must inflict, and would fain give him something fine to take the place of what he had lost.

When they came to a hill they took hold of hands and raced down. When they came to a brook he helped her gravely across, just as he had helped her ever since she came to teach the school. He said no more about his love. It was understood between them that it was a closed incident, to be put away in the sacred recesses of their hearts. Into the girl's face had come a tender, womanly interest that for the time being almost made up to the boy for the loss of her. It was while they were walking down a long stretch of brown road, straight into a glorious sunset, that the boy asked quite suddenly:

"Has he been to college?"

Dawn knew at once whom he meant, and began simply to tell all about Charles. It did her good to speak of him. It seemed to bring him nearer. Her face blossomed into sweetness as she talked. There was not much to say, not much about him that she could tell to a stranger, from her one brief day's acquaintance with her husband, yet she managed to say a good deal. Charles would have been amazed to hear her describe his high ambitions and n.o.ble thoughts. He did not dream how well the girl had read him during their one blissful day together. And now she was painting him as an ideal for the rude boy who walked beside her and listened, with his heart filled with patient envy; that presently lost its bitterness in pity for the other one, who might have her great love, yet might not walk beside her as he was doing.

At last Dan broke in upon her words:

"'Tisn't right he shouldn't know where you are. If he's anything like what you think he is, he's 'most crazy hunting you. I know how he feels."

Dawn shook her head sadly and told him he did not understand, but his words sank into her heart for future meditation, and she could not quite get away from the thought that perhaps she had been wrong, after all, in going away. Perhaps it might have been more heroic to stay and face the hard things right where she had been.

The long spring twilight had almost faded into darkness as they came at last to the inn where the coach would pa.s.s. Neither had spoken for some time. There was upon them a sense of their coming separation, and it depressed them. Already Dawn was looking into her lonely future, and dreading to lose this only friend she had. Already Dan was realizing what the going back was to be.

They had arranged it all. Dan was to take the letter to the minister, and explain that he had helped the teacher to catch a cross-country stage. He had taken it upon himself, also, to carry messages to the scholars and to her kind friends-brief messages of good-by, and haste, and sorrow; with the promise, too, at Dan's earnest solicitation, that if she ever could she would return to them.

Then at the end they had no time for parting. The stage was just driving up to the inn as they reached there. There was no time even for supper, though neither of them thought of it at the time.

Dan put her into the coach and arranged her bag comfortably, but he had to get out at once, as others were pressing in. He went outside in the dim light and stood by her window, looking up, trying to keep Rags from breaking away and getting into the coach. Something in his throat choked him. He could not speak.

The people were all in, and the driver was climbing to his place, when Dawn reached out her hand and caught Dan's, giving it a quick little squeeze.

"Dear Dan," she whispered as she leaned out, "don't forget to be the best you can."

He caught the little hand and laid his lips against it in the half-darkness. Rags had broken away and was barking wildly at the coach door, but the horses started and took Dawn away from the boy and the dog, and in a moment more they stood alone in the road, looking down the street at the dim black speck in the distance which was the coach.

Then slowly, silently, the one with downcast head, the other with drooping tail, Daniel and his dog took their way back over the road they had come so happily that afternoon. The dog could not understand, and now and then stopped, looked back, and whined, as if to say they ought to go back and do things over again. At last, when they reached the country roadside where all was still, and there were only the brooding stars to see, Dan sat down on a bank by the roadside, buried his face in his hands, and both down upon the cool, wet earth that was just beginning to spring into greenness. Then he gave way to his grief, while Rags, almost beside himself with distress, whined about him, snuffed up and down the road, and then sat down and howled at the late moon, which was just rising over a hill.

By and by Dan got up and called the dog. Together they started on their journey again, a silent, thoughtful pair. But never afterward did the boy Dan return. He was a man. He had suffered and grown. In his face were born resolve and determination. People wondered at the change in the careless, happy boy, and grew proud of his thoughtfulness.