“I heard someone stirring. I looked and thought I saw you going back to your shelter.”

His tone held grave self-reproach but no reproach for her. Nevertheless her heart burned with shame, and her eyes filled with tears. She hid her face in her hands.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be listening. I thought from the tone of your voice you were in trouble. I was afraid someone had attacked you, and perhaps I could do something to help—”

“You poor child!” he said, deeply moved. “How unpardonable of me to frighten you. It’s my habit of talking out loud when I’m alone. The vast loneliness out here has cultivated it. I didn’t realize I might disturb you. What must you think of me?”

“Think!” she exclaimed softly. “I think you’re wrong to keep a thing like that to yourself!”

And then she realized what she had said, and her face crimsoned with embarrassment.

But he was looking at her with an eager light in his eyes.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “Won’t you please explain?”

Hazel was sitting now with her face turned away, and the soft hair blowing about concealed her burning cheeks. She felt as if she must run away into the desert and end this terrible conversation. She was getting in deeper and deeper every minute.

“Please!” said the gentle, firm voice.

“Why, I think—a—a—woman—has a right—to know—a thing like that!”

“Why?” asked the voice again after a pause.

“Because—she—she—might never—she might never know there was such a love for a woman in the world!” she stammered, still with her head turned away from him. She felt she could never turn around and face this wonderful man of the desert again. She wished the ground would open up and show her some comfortable way to escape.

The pause this time was long, so long that it frightened her, but she dared not turn and look at him. If she had, she would have seen him sitting with bowed head for some time, in deep meditation, and at last lifting his glance to the sky again as if to ask a swift permission. Then he spoke.

“A man has no right to tell a woman he loves her when he cannot ask her to marry him.”

“That,” said the girl, her throat tightening, “that has nothing to do with it. I—wasn’t talking about—marrying! But I think she has a right to know. It would—make a difference all her life!”

Her throat was dry. The words seemed to stick as she uttered them, yet they would be said. She longed to hide her burning face in some cool shelter and escape from this terrible talk. But she could only sit rigidly quiet, with her fingers fastened in the coarse grass at her side.

A longer silence covered them now, and still she dared not look at the man.

A great eagle appeared in the heavens and sailed toward a mountain peak. Hazel sensed her own smallness and the fact that her words brought anguish to her companion’s soul. Yet she couldn’t think of anything to say that would improve matters.

At last he spoke, and his voice was like one performing a sad, sacred rite for one tenderly loved: “And now that you know I love you, does it make any difference to you?”

Hazel tried three times to answer, but every time her trembling lips would frame no words. Then suddenly her face dropped into her hands, and the tears came. She felt as if a benediction had been laid upon her head, and the glory of it was greater than she could bear.

The man watched her, his arms longing to enfold her and soothe her agitation, but he wouldn’t. His heart was on fire with the sweetness and pain of the present moment, but he wouldn’t take advantage of their situation on the lonely plain and desecrate the beauty of the trust she’d placed in him.

Then her strength returned, and she raised her head and glanced into his waiting eyes with a shy look, though true and earnest.

“It will make a difference—to me!” she said.