'Nothing is the matter, except that I felt unusually lazy, and catching sight of you, I thought if you would let me I would join you. I thought it would be pleasant to have a talk without having that bar between us.' 'I should like a talk very much,' she said, 'but--' and she looked round a little nervously. 'You mean people might talk if they saw us together. Well, there is nothing to talk about. A man and a woman can be good friends just as two men or two women may be--and we are good friends, are we not?' 'Certainly we are,' she said, frankly. Ned's manner had indeed puzzled her; he had always chatted to her as a friend: he had, as she had said, never once paid her a compliment or said a word that might not have been said had there been other men standing beside him at the bar. 'Do you know, when I first saw you,' he said, 'you reminded me so strongly of some one I knew in England that I could have taken you for her?' 'Indeed,' she said, coldly; 'was it some one you knew well?' 'Very well. I had known her from the time when she was a little child.' 'Did you care for her much?' 'Yes, I cared for her a great deal. She was engaged to be married to some one else.' 'Is she married to him now?' she asked. 'No. At least I believe not.' 'Did you come out here to tell me this?' she asked, suddenly facing round upon him. 'Partly,' he replied. 'We are friends, and I thought you ought to know. I am not fool enough, Linda, to suppose that you would be likely in any case to feel anything more than a liking for a rough miner like myself, but I thought that it would, at any rate, be only fair that you should know that much of my past history.' 'Then you still care,' she said, after a pause, 'for this woman who is so like me?' 'Yes, Linda. I shall always care for her.' 'And it was only because I was like her that you liked me?' she said, bitterly. 'No,' he said. 'I do not think the likeness had anything to do with it. I liked you because I saw how well you were playing your part in a most difficult position; how quietly you held your own among the rough spirits here; how much you were respected as well as liked by them. I thought how few young women in your position would have behaved so wisely and discreetly. Of course, you had your father.' 'He is not my father,' she broke in; 'he has brought me up, but he is not my father. We are partners, nothing more. I have a third share in the saloon, and could leave them whenever I chose. There, we have talked enough together: it is just as well that we should not be seen here. It would be thought that we had arranged to meet, and I do not want to be talked about, even if the talk is not true. Good-bye;' and turning she went back into the camp, while Ned Hampton making a wider detour returned to his tent.