“Yes—do you know her?”
“Slightly.” Corrigan laughed. “I knew her father. Well, well. So Trevison worshiped there, did he? Was he badly hurt—do you know?”
“I do not know.”
“Well,” said Corrigan, getting up, and speaking lightly, as though dismissing the subject from his mind; “I presume he was—and still is, for that matter. A person never forgets the first love.” He smiled at her. “Won’t you go with me for a short ride?”
The ride was taken, but a disturbing question lingered in Rosalind’s mind throughout, and would not be solved. Had Trevison forgotten Hester Keyes? Did he think of her as—as—well, as she, herself, sometimes thought of Trevison—as she thought of him now—with a haunting tenderness that made his faults recede, as the shadows vanish before the sunshine?
What Corrigan thought was expressed in a satisfied chuckle, as later, he loped his horse toward Manti. That night he wrote a letter and sent it East. It was addressed to Mrs. Hester Harvey, and was subscribed: “Your old friend, Jeff.”