For even as his soul yearned at the tender appeal of that picture most exquisite to man, the mothering of a child, the beauteous face before him was replaced by another, reproachful and haughty yet fair with a purity and beauty indescribable, the patrician mouth trembling and the sweet eyes brimming with appeal. Sharply he shut his teeth and sat erect.
Only one woman in the world should be mother to his children—and that woman was not the beauty crooning softly to that sleeping babe! He had lost her for a little while but he would find her, and the way back into her favor! And having found her, at whatever bitter cost, he would never let her go again! He resolved that on the morrow he would ride over to the C Bar and grovel in abasement at her feet if need be.
The woman sitting opposite him shivered telepathically and a tear fell on the face of the child.
"He is weighing me against her," she thought, fearfully, "and I am afraid—afraid! But I will not give him up! Oh, my God! I can not!"
And down at the C Bar Grace was crying to her heart:
"Will he come? Will he come?"
But it was Red McVey who came awooing in the soft dusk of the succeeding evening, his handsome face bright with a great love, his six feet of stalwart manliness begroomed with appropriate care. He was far from possessing his ordinary confidence, but he came bravely to the point and the girl's eyes held as much pride as they did sympathy for him.
"Your love is an honor to me," she said, gently. "I am proud to have inspired such a feeling in so grand a man, and I shall thank God on my knees for it to-night! But it is impossible, my dear friend; you will be generous and spare me explanations—"
"Don't cry!" he said, gently, but his face was very white and drawn. "I understand. Yuh are shore they ain't any hope. I'd wait foh yeahs?"
"No, dear friend, there is none. I do not think I shall ever marry. And I am going away to-morrow."