Captain Osborn sighed, as if a scalding tear had fallen down into his withered heart. His eyes rested for a moment upon her, and then he walked thoughtfully back and forth. His just resentment struggled with his innate tenderness of soul. He returned to where she was standing and said, in a low, husky voice, “Lucy, you have sinned against yourself, against me, against our baby boy, and against God; but if your contrition can gain the forgiveness of the Infinite, it certainly should gain the forgiveness of a poor, finite being like myself.” He turned away, and for a moment seemed to be struggling for mastery over himself. “Lucy,” said he, “our paths from this night must lead in opposite directions; but as I, myself, hope to be forgiven in the world to come, where mortal souls are weighed in the unerring scales of justice, so I, in my poor, weak heart forgive you.” She sobbed aloud in fervent thanksgiving for her escape. “Oh, Lyman, Lyman, my tears are now of joy, rather than of sorrow! I feel regenerated and purified. Your mercy means more than you know.” Her countenance grew strangely fair. A halo of light seemed to envelop her. A tear trembled on the cheek of the old veteran as he said, “Good night.” At an early hour of the following morning the muffled stroke of church bells sounded thirty-six times. Lucy Osborn was dead. A council of physicians said that death had come to her through heart failure, caused by some great mental strain. The clods that fell upon ner coffin sounded a plaintive requiem over the remains of an erring woman. However, they stilled the tongue of gossip. The captain may have been weak in his great forgiveness, but his was a weakness tempered with much mercy. CHAPTER XXXIII.—A RIDE AMONG SUNFLOWERS WHEN Mrs. Horton learned of the flight of Lord Avondale and of the death of her friend, Lucy Osborn, she was prostrated with grief and chagrin. The Englishman had sent her a hastily-scrawled note, briefly stating that he released her daughter from their engagement, and that his immediate departure was of the greatest importance. A few mornings after this, Ethel asked her father if she might go with him on a trip that he had planned to the Cimarron River. “I just feel, daddy,” said she, “like taking a wild ride down the valley. It will do me good. Mamma is much improved, and I can go as well as not.” The cattle king looked at his daughter with delighted astonishment. “Go? Of course you may,” said he. “Why, Ethel, you are beginning to look like yourself again. It will seem like old times to have my little girl galloping over the range with me.”