"No!" she cried, and he saw and marvelled at the new, shining look in her eyes; a look which made him stop, his heart leaping as he cried out wonderingly:
"Girl! oh, girl ... at last?"
"Don't bring Joe in! I don't want to talk with him; I want your word, just yours alone, on everything!"
Now it was Mexicali Joe who was set wondering. For Standing, with a sudden vigorous sweep of his arm, slammed the door in Joe's perplexed face and came with swift eager strides to Lynette.
"It is I who have been of little faith and disloyal," she said softly. "I was ungrateful enough to forget how you were big enough to take my unproven word that it was not I who shot you, a thing I could never prove! And yet I asked proof of you! I should have known all the time that ... 'though it were ten thousand mile....'"
She was smiling now and yet her eyes were wet. She lifted them to his that he might look down into them, through them into her heart.
"Let me say this ... first ..." she ran on hastily. "Babe Deveril saved me the second time to-day from Taggart. And he told you where to find me. I think that he has made amends."
"He wiped his slate clean," said Standing heartily. "Henceforth I am no enemy of his. But it is not of Deveril now that we must talk. Girl, can't you see...."
"Am I blind?" laughed Lynette happily.