She looked at him. Her eyes were dewy and tender, filled with love, a love tinged with sorrow, but he saw the brave resolution shining there, and he knew that, despite all, she would keep her word unless "King" Plummer himself willingly released her from it. And he loved her all the more because she was so true.
"Sylvia," he said, "I was wrong. I should not have spoken to you in such a manner. I am a weak coward to make your duty all the harder for you."
They were at the "ladies' entrance" of the hotel, and the others either had gone in or had turned aside. They were alone, and she bent a little towards him.
"The things that you say may be wrong," she whispered, "but—oh, John—I love to hear you say them!"
Then she went into the hotel, and Harley wisely did not seek to follow.
XIX
AN IDAHO STORM
Among the mountains of Idaho, a dark storm-cloud, ribbed with flashes of steel-edged lightning, was growing. For thirty years "King" Plummer had lived a life after his own mind, and it had been a very free life. In four or five states he was a real monarch, and there was nothing at all derisive about his nickname. At fifty he was at his mental and physical zenith, never before had he felt so strong, both in body and mind, so capable of doing great deeds, and with so keen a zest in life. The blood flowed in a rich, red tide through his veins, and he breathed the breath of morning like a youth.