"For his mother's sake I hope he will," she said. "I went to see her, remembering in the midst of my distress her kind face and gentle heart. I'm glad that I went, although my mission failed." "No, nothing fails," he corrected gently. "What looks to us like failure from our side of it is only the working out of the plan laid down a long time ahead. We may never see the other side of the puzzle, but if we could see it we'd find that our apparent failure had been somebody else's gain. It's the balance of compensation. Your thought of Boyle's mother, and your ride to appeal to her in my behalf, worked out in bringing his father here at a time when Jerry needed him as he never may need him in his life again." "It was a strange coincidence," she reflected. "We call such happenings that for want of a better name, or for the short-sightedness which keeps us from applying the proper one," said he. "It's better that you have concluded to give up the City of Refuge. You'll not need it now." "It was a foolish undertaking, romantic and impossible, from the very beginning," she owned. "I never could have put it through." "It would have carried many a heartache with it, and many a hard and lonely day," said he. "And so we are both back where we were, so far as landed possessions go in this country, at the beginning." "I've lost considerable by my foolish dream," she confessed with regret. "And I have gained everything," he smiled, taking her hand in his. The world around them seemed to be too grave to look kindly on any love-passages of tenderness or kisses, or triflings such as is the common way of a man with a maid. In that moment when hand touched hand she looked up into his eyes with warm softness glowing in her own, and on her lips stood an invitation which his heart sprang to seize, like an eager guest leaping through the portal of welcome. At that moment, when eye drew eye, heart warmed to heart, and lips trembled to meet, Jerry Boyle coughed as if blood were mounting to his throat and cutting off his life. Dr. Slavens was at his side in a moment. It must have been the strangulation of an uneasy dream, for there was no symptom of hemorrhage. The wounded man still slept, groaning and drawing the lips back from the teeth, as he had drawn them in his passion when he came on that morning to meet his enemy with the intention in his heart to slay. But love shuddered and grew pale in the cold nearness of death. The kiss so long deferred was not given, and the fluttering pulse which had warmed to welcome it fell slow, as one who strikes a long stride in a journey that has miles yet to measure before its end. Governor Boyle was back in camp in the middle of the afternoon, and before night the tents and furnishings for lodging the party comfortably arrived from Comanche. The Governor pressed Agnes, who was considering riding to Comanche to find lodging, to remain there to assist and comfort his wife when she should arrive.