"Yes, I could," she murmured in a husky whisper. "I know, I understand."
He dared not speak he was so filled with emotion. It had rushed over him in a flood. To think she had suffered so—she! In a minute her plaintive voice broke upon him once more.
"It's like this. Lucy can't be so sorry as she ought to be, and it is dreadful to her. It is like those fearful dreams when we long to get somewhere and cannot take a step, or ache to cry out and cannot make a sound. She aches to feel sorrier; she is ashamed that she cannot. But grief sits back and laughs at hers, and will not be coaxed into her company. It nearly kills her that it is so, for she is a good, conscientious girl who wants to do and to be right—oh, poor little Lucy!"
He took her shaking hand and drew it gently within his arm. She was weeping behind her veil, and he felt the passion in her outburst. He was not stupid; he had known James Early. He could feel to his soul what was passing in hers, and the revelation wrung him as no sorrow had ever wrung him before. If he but dared to comfort her, to assure her that here was a friend who would stand between her and every wrong in future! After a little he dared trust himself to answer.
"Miss Lavillotte, I think life is always harder than it looks from the outside—yet easier, too. At the worst something comes to help out. And, just because it is so hard, it can be no sin to be glad and happy when Heaven gives us the chance. No decent person will kick a man when he is down; neither does fate. When you talk to Lucy again just tell her to enjoy all she can, and honor her poor father by believing that, wherever he may be now, he will be glad to know she is trying to be happy."
If the words held double solace no one could guess it by Dalton's manner. It was decidedly matter-of-fact above its tenderness. Joyce did not answer, except by a long sighing breath, but there was relief in its sound. Her hand still rested in the arm of her manager, and a feeling of safety and contentment gradually stole into her heart, often sore for her own loneliness, as well as over the woes of others.
CHAPTER XXI.
IN THE LOCK-UP.
The marshal unlocked the door of Nate's narrow cell and held his lantern aloft with a cheery, "Hello! Tierney. Brought you company, you see," and the prisoner rose slowly from his bunk, blinking and staring in the light, with an expectant air. It died out quickly, and murmuring in a broken voice,