He accepted her correction with a groan, an wheeled away, leaning his arms on the corral fence and looking away to that saddle between the peak which still glowed with sunset light. “I haven’t met a woman of your kind before in ten years,” he said presently. “I’ve lived on your looks, your motions, the inflections of your voice. I suppose I’ve been starved for that sort of thing and didn’t know it till you came. It’s been like a glimpse of heaven to me.” He laughed bitterly: and went on: “Of course, I had to take to drinking and let you see the devil I am. When I’m sober you would be as safe with me as with York. But the excitement of meeting you—I have to ride my emotions to death so as to drain them to the uttermost. Drink stimulates the imagination, and I drank.” “I’m sorry.” Her voice said more than the words. He looked at her curiously. “You’re only a girl. What do you know about men of my sort? You have been wrappered and sheltered all your life. And yet you understand me better than any of the people I meet. All my life I have fought with myself. I might have been a gentleman and I’m only a wolf. My appetites and passions, stronger than myself dragged me down. It was Kismet, the destiny ordained for me from my birth.” “Isn’t there always hope for a man who knows his weaknesses and fights against them?” she asked timidly. “No, there is not,” came the harsh answer. “Besides, I don’t fight. I yield to mine. Enough of that. It is you we have to consider, not me. You have saved my life, and I have got to pay the debt.” “I didn’t think who you were,” her honesty compelled her to say. “That doesn’t matter. You did it. I’m going to take you back to your father and straight as I can.” Her eyes lit. “Without a ransom?” “Yes.” “You pay your debts like a gentleman, sir.” “I’m not coyote all through.” She could only ignore the hunger that stared out of his eyes for her. “What about your friends? Will they let me go?” “They’ll do as I say. What kicking they do will be done mostly in private, and when they’re away from me.” “I don’t want to make trouble for you.” “You won’t make trouble for me. If there’s any trouble it will be for them,” he said grimly. Neither of them made any motion toward the house. The girl felt a strange impulse of tenderness toward this man who had traveled so fast the road to destruction. She had seen before that deep hunger of the eyes, for she was of the type of woman that holds a strong attraction for men. It told her that he had looked in the face of his happiness too late—too late by the many years of a misspent life that had decreed inexorably the character he could no longer change. “I am sorry,” she said again. “I didn’t see that in you at first. I misjudged you. One can’t label men just good or bad, as the novelists used to. You have taught me that—you and Mr. Neil.”