Nan gazed up into his big troubled face with the frank eyes that looked wholly untroubled.
"Don't try, my Daddy. Guess I've done all that's necessary that way. Maybe I know just how you're feeling, because I know how I'm feeling. God's been good to me all my years. He's given me a Daddy who's the best in the world. A Daddy who's taught me by his own example how to be strong and fight the little battles I guess it's meant for us to fight. Oh, I won't say it hasn't hurt," she went on, with a catch in her voice. "You see, I loved Jeff. I love him now, and I'll go right on loving him to the end. And it's because I love him I want to help him now—and always. You won't think me a fool girl, my Daddy, will you, but—but—I won't hate Elvine van Blooren. I'm—I'm going to try so hard to like her, and—and anyway, with all my might, I'm going to help them both. D'you guess Jeff would let me get his house ready for—his wife?"
The father's reply came with a violence which he calculated should conceal an emotion which his manhood forbade, but which only helped to reveal it the more surely to the clear eyes of the girl at his side.
"Hell take the bunch—the whole of 'em!" he cried fiercely. Then he added weakly: "You're nigh breakin' my heart all to pieces."
But Nan's smile suddenly became radiant, as she turned her brown eyes away from the spectacle of her father's trouble to the distant horizon ahead.
She shook her head.
"No, my Daddy. I allow it feels that way just now. I've felt that way, too. But it's just God's tempering. And when it's through, why I guess our hearts'll be made of good metal, strong and steady to do the work He'd have us do. And that's just all we can ask, isn't it?"
CHAPTER XIII
THE NEWS
Nan rode up to the veranda of the ranch house and sprang lightly from the saddle. Her pony's flanks were caked with sweat. The days now, as they approached July, were blistering, and the work of the great ranch was heavy for everybody. Nan had constituted herself Jeff's substitute during his absence, and performed his share of the labor with a skill and efficiency which astonished even her father.