He found himself thinking only of his ride with Yerba.

Well! he had told her that he loved her.
She knew it now, and although she had forbidden him to speak further, she had not wholly rejected it.

It must be her morbid consciousness of the mystery of her birth that withheld a return of her affections,--some half-knowledge, perhaps, that she would not divulge, yet that kept her unduly sensitive of accepting his love.

He was satisfied there was no entanglement; her heart was virgin.

He even dared to hope that she had ALWAYS cared for him.