Oh, what it must have cost him to leave her room that night--it seemed so long ago--she had clung to being a kid and had conceived it to be her right to stay on the girlhood side of the bridge.

To be able to live those days over again--how different she would be.
Without permitting Gilbert to guess what she was doing, she must humor him and gain time.

She gave thanks to God that he was in this gentle, exalted mood, and was treating her with a sort of reverence.

Behind the danger and the terror of it all she recognized the wonder of his love.
"Gilbert," she said softly.
"Well, my little spring girl ?" "Come and sit here, where I can see you." "You have only to tell me what I'm to do," he said and obeyed at once.
How different from the old affected Gilbert--this quiet man with the burning eyes who sat with his elbows on his knees and his back bent towards her and the light of one of the lanterns on his handsome face.
She had played with a soul as well as with a heart, and also, it appeared, with a brain.

How fatal had been her effect upon men--Martin out of armor and Gilbert on the wrong side of the thin dividing line.
Men's love--it was too big and good a thing to have played with, if she had only stopped to think, or some one had been wise and kind enough to tell her.