Dan Anderson sat down on a bundle of bedding, and fell into a half dream in the warm morning sun. There was time even yet for him to escape, he reflected. He had but to step into the wagon, and drive on down the cañon. Constance Ellsworth—if indeed it were true that she had come again so near to him—need never know that he had been there. How could he learn if she had indeed come? How could he ever face her now? Surely she could never understand. She could only despise him. Dan Anderson sat, irresolute, staring at the breakfast dishes piled near the mess-box ready for packing.
Meantime, in the dining room at Sky Top hotel, there was a certain flutter of excitement as there entered, just from the train, the party of Mr. Ellsworth, president of the new railway company now building northward. Ellsworth beckoned Porter Barkley to him for talk of business nature, so that Constance sat well-nigh alone when Madame Alicia Donatelli came sweeping in, tall, comely, sombre, and, it must be confessed, hungry. Donatelli hesitated politely, and Constance made room for her with a smile and gesture, which disarmed the Donatelli hostility for all well-garbed and well-poised young women of class other than her own.
"And you're going up the country still farther?" asked Donatelli, catching a remark made by one of the men. "I wish I could go as well. You go by buckboard?"
Constance nodded. "I like it," said she. "I am sure we shall enjoy the ride up to Heart's Desire."
"Heart's Desire?" repeated the diva, with an odd smile.
Constance saw the smile and challenged it. "Yes," she replied briefly, "I was there once before."
"What is it like?" asked Donatelli.
"Like nothing in the world—yet it's just a little valley shut in by the mountains."
"A man was here from Heart's Desire last night," began Donatelli. "You know, I am a singer. He had heard in some way. My faith! He came more than a hundred miles, and he said from Heart's Desire. I've wondered what the place was like."
The Donatelli face flushed hotly in spite of herself. A queer expression suddenly crossed that of Constance Ellsworth as well. She wondered who this man could be!