"You needn't say one word—Jimmie—my husband! I have known it all, every bit of it, from the first—from that Sunday morning when Daddy took me over to your mine," she whispered. "I—I loved you, dearest, when I was only a foolish little school-girl, and your sister and I have exchanged letters ever since Daddy and I left Glendale. So I knew; knew when they sent you to prison for another man's crime, and knew, even better than your mother and sister did, why you let them do it. Oh, Jimmie!"—with a queer little twist of the sweet lips that was half tears and half smile—"if you could only know how wretchedly jealous I used to be of Agatha Geddis!"
"You needn't have been!" I burst out. "But you don't know it all. Last winter—in Denver——"
She nodded sorrowfully.
"Yes, dear; I knew that, too. I knew that Agatha Geddis was using you again—against your will; and that this time she had a cruel whip in her hand. We had all heard of the broken parole; it was in the home newspapers, and, besides, your sister wrote me about it."
"And in the face of all this, you——"
She nodded again, brightly this time, though her eyes were swimming.
"Yes, my lover—a thousand times, yes! And I knew this would come, too,—some time; this dreadful thing that has fallen upon us to-day. I am heart-broken only for you, dear. What will they do to you?"
I told her briefly. They would make me serve the remaining two years of the original sentence, doubtless with an added penalty for the broken regulations.
"Dear God—two years!" she gasped, with a quick little sob; and then she became my brave little girl again. "They will pass, Jimmie, dear, and they won't seem so terribly long when we remember what we are waiting for. I'm going with you, you know—as far as they'll let me; and when things look their blackest you must remember that I'm only just a little way off; just a little way—and waiting—and waiting——"
She broke down at the last and cried in my arms, and when she could find her voice again: