"No, no, Alden, thank you; but that's for me."
They had not spoken Ewing's name, but his concern in the matter, the meaning of his faith in the woman, was a matter that seemed to lie open to them both. Alden Teevan had assumed it and she had made no denial. His recognition of it colored his leave-taking.
"All happiness for you, Nell. The game ought to be worth playing with you—and with him. You both live so hard." He found it difficult to say as little, there was such gratitude and such misery in her eyes as they fell before his, trying to veil at least a part of what she felt. But he left her so.
She lay a long time trying to realize Ewing in this new light. She had never read anything in his eyes but the fullest devotion, and yet for months he had believed this sinister thing. She caught again his young, sorry, protesting look, and the poignancy of it brought her tears. There came into the tenderness she had felt for him something of awe for his unquestioning allegiance, a thing that had not wavered under the worst he could believe. Then the monstrous absurdity of what he did believe came upon her once more and she laughed; but her tears still fell. And so, with laughter and tears, she set him up anew in her heart, her beloved child and her terrible master. She was glad now that she knew. It made him more to her. And the time would be so short.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE SUNSET TRAIL
EWING had looked forward pleasantly to meeting Virginia Bartell again, but it was a new Virginia who met him with a nod when he joined the party on the evening of the start. She had eyes only for her sister, the white, weak, phantom thing who smiled terribly as her brother half carried her into the stateroom of their car. Through the days of the journey he sought to cheer her, wistfully making jests about the flat land and its people as they sped through the little wooden towns, promising her a land that would be "busy every minute." But she would only say, "I'll like your land when it makes sister well."
"It's bound to," he assured her. "Nobody dies there unless he gets careless. Here, this is the way it happens. Here's Ben Crider's last letter. You'll like Ben. Listen to this and see if it doesn't make you hopeful." He opened the scrawled sheet and read:
"'Dear Kid, I thought it about time to write you a few lines. If you seen the lake now you would want to of been here. Life and nature seems very complete here. I heard Chet Lynch shot Elmer Watts. I been building a haystacker for Pierce. Plenty deer sign around the lick. Lee Jennings was killed by a bucker falling back on him. I can sell your saddle for twenty-two dollars to Ben Lefferts. I put a new latigo on it. Let me know. Say, Kid, I sent two dollars to the Mystic Novelty Company. The address is Lock Box 1347. The ad. said they would send you a book how to read past, present and future from the hand and a genuine ten-karat Persian diamond pin set in solid gold, if you sent on one dollar in stamps or P. O. order. Well, the diamond may be all right enough Persian, but the solid gold setting has turned black. You go there and ask for the head man and raise particular—'" He broke off the reading.
"You see, they only die by getting shot, or falling off a horse."