A hand touched Steven upon the shoulder. It was Pierre. “Some one asks for you outside,” he said, “a lady. She waits before the house of Ceran St. Vrain, seated upon a white horse.” Steven stared at him almost uncomprehendingly; but he rose to his feet and followed Pierre out into the moonlight. Consuelo sat atop her white horse, saddled bravely with the chair saddle of red Spanish leather. She gazed down at him anxiously. Her face looked very small and white beneath her dark reboso. As Steven advanced and stood at her stirrup, an Indian guide who had been waiting beside her touched heels to his horse and rode on up the road. “Ess-tevan,” she whispered, “I have come after you--to tell you--what in Santa Fe you would not hear. I am so, so sorry for all. It was wrong of me, I see, to be thinking of Luis, but I did not think of him only. I thought--that you loved the Americana, ’Ope Bragdon, and that you would for her sake be glad to go into the desert, as well as for the child. And about the--the picture. I could not tell my father.” Her voice broke, stopped. There was no word from Steven. She found a sobbing breath and hurried on. “You do not know how he would take such things. He is too proud. I could only wait and pray. Father Filemon Hubert said that it was right, that all would come right. How I have wept. “Even now, that the painting is back again, my father has had a stroke. He could not bear it, to know about Luis. And Luis--he has gone away from home. We have not seen him since the night you were with us.” It was too much. She had said bravely all that there was to say, with no help from Steven. He was standing with bowed head at her side. Then he lifted his face and spoke, wonderingly and ashamed: “And you came all this way across the mountains just to tell me, worthless and hasty as I have been, about it all, when I would not even stay to listen.” He raised his arms, lifted her down from the saddle, and carried her like a child into St. Vrain’s house, and did not stop till he had set her down before the fire in the brightly lighted room. He asked for a room and food for the lady, and while people flew in all directions to bring hot coffee and broth, Steven with eyes for nothing else leaned above her and whispered, “Consuelo, Consuelo.” All the trappers and rough hunters in their shaggy sheepskins, their coon caps, their fringed and soiled buckskins, arose and filed quietly out and down the street to Magdalena de Archibec’s.