The night wore itself away, but before morning had broken he saw her again. She came with her three light taps, and he opened the door to find her in the passage with a tray of food.
"I didn't dare cook you any coffee. There's nothing hot—just what happened to be in the pantry. Mrs. Allan won't miss it, because the boys are always foraging at all hours. She'll think one of them got hungry. Of course, I couldn't wait till morning," she explained, as she put the tray on the table.
Weaver experienced anew the stress of humility and emotion. He caught up her little hand and crushed it with a passion of tenderness in his great fist. She looked at him in the old, startled, shy way; then snatched her hand from him, and, with a wildly beating heart, scudded along the passage and down the back stairs.
He sank into a chair, with a groan. What use? This creature, fine as silk, the heiress of all that youth had to offer in daintiness and charm, was not—could not be for such as he. He had gone too far on the road to hell, ever to find such a heaven open to him.
How long he sat so, he did not know. Probably, not long, but gray morning was sweeping back the curtain of darkness when he came from his absorption with a start. Somebody had tapped thrice for admittance.
He arose and unlocked the door. A young woman stood outside the threshold, peering into the semi-darkness toward him.
"Is it you, Phyl?" she asked.
The cattleman said nothing. On the spur of the moment, he could not think of the fitting speech. The eyes of his visitor, becoming accustomed to the dim light, saw before her the outline of a man. She let out a startled little scream that ended in a laugh of apology.
"It's Phil, isn't it?"
There was no way out of it. "No—it's not Phil. Come in, ma'am, and I'll explain," said Buck Weaver.