It was true, Martin Landis spent many hours at the Reist farmhouse. He
seemed filled with an insatiable desire for the companionship of
Amanda. Scarcely a day passed without some glimpse of him at the Reist
home.
Just what that companionship meant to the young man he did not stop to
analyze at first. He knew he was happy with Amanda, enjoyed her
conversation, felt a bond between them in their love for the vast
outdoors, but he never went beyond that. Until one day in early
November when he was walking down the lonely road after a pleasant
evening with Amanda. He paused once to look up at the stars,
remembering what the girl had said concerning them, how they comforted
and inspired her. A sudden rush of feeling came to him as he leaned on
the rail fence and looked up.... "Look here," he told himself, "it's
time you take account of yourself. What's all this friendship with your
old companion leading to? Do you love Amanda?" The "stars in their
courses" seemed to twinkle her name, every leafless tree along the road
she loved seemed to murmur it to him--Amanda! It was suddenly the
sweetest name in the whole world to him!
"Oh, I know it now!" he said softly to himself under the quiet sky. "I
love her! What a woman she is! What a heart she has, what a heart! I
want her for my wife; she's the only one I want to have with me 'Till
death us do part'--that's a fair test. Why, I've been wondering why I
enjoyed each minute with her and just longed to get to see her as often
as possible--fool, not to recognize love when it came to me! But I know
it now! I'm as sure of it as I am sure those stars, her stars, are
shining up there in the sky."
As he stood a moment silently looking into the starry heavens some
portion of an old story came to him. "My love is as fair as the stars
and well-nigh as remote and inaccessible." Could he win the love of a
girl like Amanda Reist? She gave him her friendship freely, would she
give her love also? A woman like Amanda could never be satisfied with
half-gods, she would love as she did everything else--intensely,
entirely! He remembered reading that propinquity often led people into
mistakes, that constant companionship was liable to awaken a feeling
that might masquerade as love. Well, he'd be fair to her, he'd let
separation prove his love.
"That's just what I'll do," he decided. "Next week I'm to go on my
vacation and I'll be gone two weeks. I'll not write to her and of
course I won't see her. Perhaps 'Absence will make the heart grow
fonder' with her. I hope so! It will be a long two weeks for me, but
when I come back--" He flung out his arms to the night as though they
could bring to him at once the form of the one he loved.