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She looked at him quickly, then answered with a smile: “I’m always glad to hear stories–and at the worst one can always decline to answer questions.”

He looked out over the prairie, and saw the lights of the little town–her home–in the distance.

“It isn’t a short story, and I have only so long”–he pointed along the road ahead to the village beyond–“to tell it in.” He settled back in the seat, and began speaking. His voice was low and soft, like the prairie night-wind.

“Part of the story you know; part of it I think you have guessed; a little of it will be new. For the sake of that little, I will tell all.”

“Thirteen years ago, what is now a little prairie town–then a very little town indeed–gained a new citizen–a boy of nine. A party of farmers found him one day, sleeping in a pile of hay, in the market corner. He lay so they could see how his face was bruised–and how, though asleep, he tossed in pain. He awoke, and, getting up, walked with a limp. Where he came from no one knew, and he would not tell; but his appearance told its own story. He had run away from somewhere. What had happened they could easily imagine.

“It was harvest-time and boys, even though minus a pedigree, were in demand; so he was promptly put on a farm. Though only a child, he had no one to care for him–and he was made to work ceaselessly.

“Years passed and brought a marked change in the boy. How he lived was a marvel. It was a country of large families, and no one cared to adopt him. Summers, he would work for his board and clothes, and in winter, by the irony of Nature, for his board only; yet, perhaps because it was the warmest place he knew, he managed to attend district school.

“When a lad of fifteen he began to receive wages–and life’s horizon seemed to change. He dressed neatly, and in winter came to school in the little prairie town. He was put in the lower grades with boys of ten, and even here his blunders made him a laughing-stock; but not for long, for he worked–worked always–and next year was put in the high school.

“There he established a precedent–doing four years’ work in two–and graduated at eighteen. How he did it no one but he himself knew–studying Sundays, holidays, and evenings, when he was so tired that he had to walk the floor to keep awake–but he did it.”

The speaker stopped a moment to look at his companion. “Is this a bore? Somehow I can’t help talking to-night.”

“No, please go on,” said the girl quickly.

“Well, the boy graduated–but not alone. For two years he had worked side by side with a brown-haired, brown-eyed girl. From the time he had first seen her she was his ideal–his divinity. And she had never spoken with him five minutes in her life. After graduation, the girl went away to a big university. Her parents were wealthy, and her every wish was gratified.”

Again the speaker hesitated. When he went on his face was hard, his voice bitter.

“And the boy–he was poor and he went back to the farm. He was the best hand in the country; for the work he received good wages. If he had worked hard before, he worked now like a demon. He thought of the girl away at college, and tried at first to crowd her from his memory–but in vain. Then he worked in self-defence–and to forget.

“He saw years slipping by–and himself still a farmhand. The thought maddened him, because he knew he was worthy of something better.

“Gradually, his whole life centred upon one object–to save money for college. Other boys called him close and cold; but he did not care. He seldom went anywhere, so intent was he upon his one object. On hot summer nights, tired and drowsy he would read until Nature rebelled, and he would fall asleep to dream of a girl–a girl with brown eyes that made one forget–everything. In winter, he had more time–and the little lamp in his room became a sort of landmark: it burned for hours after every other light in the valley had ceased shining.