"Well, Agnes, you dodged me in Meander," said he. "You've located quite a piece up the river and off the stage-road, haven't you?" "But not far enough, it seems," she answered, a little weariness in her voice, as of one who turns unwillingly to face at last something which has been put away for an evil day. "No need for us to take up old quarrels, Agnes," he chided with a show of gentleness. "I don't want to quarrel with you, Jerry; I never did quarrel with you," she disclaimed. "'Misunderstandings' would be a better word then, I suppose," he corrected. "But you could have knocked me over with a feather when you repudiated me over there at Comanche that day. I suppose I should have known that you were under an alias before I made that break, but I didn't know it, Agnes, believe _me_." "How could you?" she said, irritably. "That was nothing; let it rest. But you understand that it was for the sake of others that the alias was--and is--used; not for my own." "Of course, Agnes. But what do you want to be wasting yourself on this rough country for? There are more suitable places in Wyoming for you than this lonesome spot. What's the object, anyhow?" "I am building here the City of Refuge," said she, "and its solitude will be its walls." "Ready for the time when _he_ comes back, I suppose?" She nodded assent slowly, as if grudging him that share of the knowledge of her inner life. "Poor old kid, you've got a job ahead of you!" he commiserated. A resentful flush crept into her face, but she turned aside, gathering her sticks as if to hide her displeasure. Boyle laughed. "Pardon the familiarity--'vulgar familiarity' you used to call it--Agnes. But 'what's bred in the bone,' you know." "It doesn't matter so much when there's no one else around, but it's awkward before people." "You wouldn't marry me on account of my tongue!" said he with sour reminiscence. "It wasn't so much that, Jerry," she chided, "and you know it perfectly well." "Oh, well, if a man does take a drink now and then----" he discounted. "But many drinks, and frequently, are quite different," she reproved. "We'll not fuss about it." "Far from it," she agreed. "I didn't come down to open old matters, although I suppose you thought that was my intention when you dodged me and stuck so close to that tin-horn doctor up at Meander." "It's comforting to know you haven't come for--_that_," said she, ignoring his coarse reference to Slavens. "No; things change a good deal in four years' time, even sentiment--and names." "But it wouldn't be asking too much to expect you to respect some of the changes?" "I don't suppose," he mused, "that many people around here care whether a man's name is the one he goes by, or whether it's the one he gets his mail under at the post-office at Comanche. That's generally believed to be a man's own business. Of course, he might carry it too far, but that's his own lookout." "Are you on your way to Comanche?" she asked.