"Here is the place I was looking for," said Brockway, handing Gertrude to a seat on a great fallen fir which had once been a sentinel on the farthest outpost of the timber-line. "It's three years since I was here, but I remember this log and the little stream of snow-water. Isn't it clear and pure?"

"Everything ought to be that, up here in the face of that great shining mountain," she said; and then they spread their luncheon on the tree-trunk between them, and pitied the crowded Tadmorians in the little hotel below.

"I feel as if I could look down benignantly on the whole world," Gertrude declared, searching for the paper of salt and finding it not. "The things of yesterday seem immeasurably far away; and as for to-morrow, I could almost persuade myself there isn't going to be any."

"I wish there wasn't going to be any," said Brockway; but the manner in which he attacked the cold chicken slew the pessimism in the remark.

"Do you? I could almost say Amen to that," she rejoined, soberly.

"You? I should have thought you would be the last person in the world to want to stop Time's train."

She laughed softly. "That is very human, isn't it? I was thinking precisely the same thing of you. Tell me why you would like to abolish the to-morrows—or is it only the very next one that ever will be that you want to escape?"

"It's all of them, I think: but you mustn't ask me to tell you why."

"Why mustn't I?"

"Because I can't do it and keep my promise to tell you the truth."

"That is frank, at least," she retorted. "I hope you are not a conscience-stricken train-robber, or a murderer, or anything of that kind."

"Hardly," Brockway replied, helping himself to another sandwich; "but you would be quite horrified if I should tell you what I have really done."

"Do you think so? You might try me and see," she said, half pleading and half jesting.

Brockway thought about it for a moment.

"I'll do it—on one condition."

"You ought to be ashamed to propose conditions to me. What is it?"

"That you will tell me quite as truthfully why you agreed with me about the abolition of the to-morrows."

It was Gertrude's turn to consider, but she ended by accepting the proviso.

"After you," she said, with a constrained little laugh. "But who would ever think of exchanging confidences at this altitude over a stolen luncheon!"

"Not many, perhaps; but it's quite in keeping with our compact; we were not to do ordinary things, you know. And I'm sure this confession I am going to make is unpremeditated."

"Is it so very dreadful?"

"It is, I assure you, though I can make it in five words. I am hopelessly in love—don't laugh, please; there isn't the slightest element of levity in it for me."

Nevertheless, she did laugh, albeit there was pain at the catching of her breath.

"Forgive me," she said, quickly. "I don't mean to be silly if I can help it. Tell me about it, and why it is hopeless."

"It's the old story of Jack and his master," Brockway continued. "I have had the audacity to fall in love with the daughter of one of my betters."

"One of your betters? I'm afraid I can't quite understand that. Don't we live in a golden age when Jack is as good as his master, if he choose to make himself so?"

"By no manner of means," asserted this modern disciple of feudalism; "the line is drawn just as sharply now as it was when Jack was a bond thrall and his master was a swashbuckling baron."

"Who draws it? the thrall or the baron?"

The question opened up a new view of the matter, and Brockway took time to think about it.

"I'm not sure as to that," he said, doubtfully. "I've always taken it for granted it was the baron; but perhaps it's both of them."

"You may be very sure there are two sides to that shield, as to all others," she asserted. "But tell me more about your own trouble. Is it altogether impossible? Does the—the young woman think as you do?"

"It is; and I don't know what she thinks. I've never asked her, you know."

"You haven't? And still you sit here on this log and eat cold chicken and tell me calmly that it's hopeless! I said awhile ago that you were very daring, but I'll retract in deference to that."

"It's not exactly a lack of courage," Brockway objected, moved to defend himself when he would much rather have done something else. "There is another obstacle, and it is insurmountable. She is rich—rich in her own right, I'm told; and I am a poor man."

"How poor?"

"Pitifully so, from her point of view. So poor that if I gave her a five-room cottage and one servant, I could do no more."

"Many a woman has been happy with less."

"Doubtless, but they were not born in the purple."

"Some of them were, if by that you mean born with money to throw away. I suppose you might say that of me."

Brockway suddenly found the Denver eating-house cake very dry, but he could not take his eyes from her long enough to go and get a drink from the rill at the log-end.

"But you would never, marry a poor man," he ventured to say.

"Wouldn't I? That would depend very much upon circumstances," she rejoined, secure in the assurance that her secret was now double-locked in a dungeon of Brockway's own building. "If it were the right thing to do I shouldn't hesitate, though in that case I should go to him as destitute as the beggar maid did to King Cophetua."

Brockway's heart gave a great bound and then seemed to forget its office.

"How is that? I—I don't understand," he stammered.

Gertrude gazed across at the shining mountain and took courage from its calm passivity.

"I will tell you, because I promised to," she said. "I, too, have money in my own right, but it is only in trust, and it will be taken from me if I do not marry in accordance with the provisions of my granduncle's will. So you see, unless I accept my—the person named in the will, I shall be as dowerless as any proud poor man could ask."

"But you will accept your cousin," said Brockway, quickly putting Fleetwell's name into the hesitant little pause.

She looked steadfastly at the great peak and shook her head.

"I shall not," she answered, and her voice was so low that Brockway saw rather than heard the denial.

"Why?" he demanded.

She turned to him with sudden reproach in her eyes. "You press me too hardly, but I suppose I have given you the right. The reason is because I—I don't think enough of him in the right way."

"Tell me one other thing, if you can—if you will. Do you love someone else?" His voice was steadier now, and his eyes held her so that she could not turn back to the shining mountain, as she wanted to. None the less, she answered him truthfully, as she had promised.

"I do."

"Is he a poor man?"

"He says he is."

"How poor?"

"As poor as you said you were a moment ago."

"And you will give up all that you have had—all that you could keep—and go out into the world with him to take up life at its beginnings?"

"If he asks me to. But he will not ask me; he is too proud."

"How do you know?"

His gaze wavered for an instant, and she turned away quickly. "Because he has told me so."

Brockway rose rather unsteadily and went to the rivulet to get a drink. The sweetly maddening truth was beginning to beat its way into his brain, and he stood dazed for a moment before he remembered that he had brought no drinking-cup. Then he knelt by the stream, and, turning his silk travelling-cap inside out, filled it to the brim with the clear, cold water. His hands trembled a little, but he made shift to carry it to her without spilling much.

"It is a type of all that I have to offer you, besides myself—not even so much as a cup to drink out of," he said, and his voice was steadier than his hands. "Will you let me be your cup-bearer—always?"

She was moved to smile at the touch of old-world chivalry, but she fell in with his mood and put his hands away gently.

"No—after you; it is I who should serve." And when he had touched his lips to the water, she drank deeply and thanked him.

Brockway thrust the dripping cap absently into his pocket, and stood looking down on her like a man in a maze; stood so long that she glanced up with a quizzical little smile and said, "Are you sorry?"

He came to himself with a start and sat down on the tree-trunk beside her. "Sorry? You know better than that. But I do believe I'm a bit idiotic with happiness. Are you quite sure you know what you have done?"

"Quite. I think I made up my mind last night to do it—if you should ask me. It was after our ride on the engine; after my father had let me see what was in his mind."

"Ah, yes—your father. He will be very angry, won't he?"

"Yes"—reluctantly.

"But you will not let him make you recant?"

She laughed joyously. "You think you are in love with me, and yet that shows how little you really know of me, or of the family characteristics. We have plenty of unlovelinesses, but fickleness isn't one of them."

"Forgive me," he said, humbly; "but it seems to me there is so little to hold you, and so much to turn you aside. I——"

A series of shrill shrieks from the locomotive in the valley below interrupted him, and he rose reluctantly. "They're calling us in; we'll have to go."

She took his arm and they ran down the steep declivity, across the small plateau, and so on to the bottom of the railway cutting. Just before they reached the train, Brockway asked if he should tell the Burtons.

"As you please," she replied. "I shall tell my father and Cousin Jeannette as soon as we get back."

They found the passengers all aboard and the train waiting for them, and Mrs. Burton scolded them roundly for their misdeeds.

"We had a mind to go off and leave you," she said; "it would have served you right for running away. Where ever have you been?"

"Up on the hill, taking in the scenery," Brockway replied; and Gertrude abetted him with an enthusiastic description of Gray's Peak as seen from the plateau—a description which ran on without a break until the train paused at Silver Plume, where the Tadmorians debarked to burrow in a silver mine. Burton burrowed with them, as a matter of course, but his wife declined to go.

"I shall stay right here and keep an eye on these truants," she declared, with great severity. And Brockway and Gertrude exchanged comforting glances—as who should say, "What matters it now?"—and clasped hands under cover of the stir of debarkation. And Mrs. Burton saw all this without seeming to, and rejoiced gleefully at the bottom of her match-making heart.

When the Tadmorians had inspected the mine, and had come back muddy and besprinkled with water and besmirched with candle-drippings, the train went on its way down the canyon. Having done what he might toward pumping the well of tourist curiosity dry on the outward journey, Burton was given a little rest during the afternoon; and the quartette sat together in the coach and talked commonplace inanities when they talked at all. And the burden of even this desultory conversation fell mainly upon the general agent and his wife. The two young people were tranquilly happy, quite content to be going or staying, or what not, so long as they could be together.

At Golden, Brockway ran out and secured a copy of the President's telegram as it stood when written; and when opportunity offered, he showed it to Gertrude.

"It was purposely garbled by a friend of mine," he confessed, shamelessly; "but how much or how little I didn't know till now. I have no excuse to offer but the one you know. I thought it was my last chance to ever spend a day with you, and I would have done a much worse thing rather than lose it. Can you forgive me?"

"Forgive you for daring to make me happy? I should be something more or less than a woman if I didn't. But my father won't."

"No, I suppose not. But you must not try to shield me. When you tell him, let it be clearly understood that I alone am to blame. Is there any probability that he has carried out his threat of leaving you behind?"

"Not the least," she replied, confidently; "it was only what you of the West would call a—a little bluff, I think."

"You still think it will be better for you to tell him first? that I'd better not go to him at once?"

"I do; but you may speak to him afterward, if you think best."

"It must be this evening. When shall I come?"

"Any time after dinner. If you will watch the window of my stateroom, I'll let you know when you can find him alone."

The day was going out in a dusty twilight, and they were again standing on the rear platform of the second observation-car.

When the train clattered in over the switches and stopped on the outer track of the Denver station platform, this last car was screened by the dimly lighted hulk of the Tadmor switched in to receive its lading. Brockway ran down the steps and swung Gertrude lightly to the platform; after which he put his arms about her and kissed her passionately.

"God knows when the next time will be," he said, with a sudden foreboding of evil; and then he took her arm and led her swiftly across to the private car, leaving the Burtons to go whither they would.