She got through the ordeal somehow--with an appearance of pleasure--though it was hard for her to play the hypocrite! But so soon as she decently could, without cutting short the inevitable inconsequential chatter which fills the first moments of renewed friendships, she hurried Hester to a room and during her absence sat immovable in her chair on the porch staring stonily out at the plains. It was not until half an hour later, when they were sitting on the porch, that Hester delivered the stroke that caused Rosalind's hands to fall nervelessly into her lap, her lips to quiver and her eyes to fill with a reflection of a pain that gripped her hard, somewhere inside. For Hester had devised her method, as suggested by Corrigan. "It may seem odd to you--if you know anything of the manner of my breaking off with Trevison Brandon--but he wrote me about a month ago, asking me to come out here. I didn't accept the invitation at once--because I didn't want him to be too sure, you know, dearie. Men are always presuming and pursuing, dearie." "Then you didn't hear of Trevison's whereabouts from Ruth Gresham?" "Why, no, dearie! He wrote directly to me." Rosalind hadn't _that_ to reproach herself with, at any rate! "Of course, I couldn't go to his ranch--the Diamond K, isn't it?--so, noting from one of the newspapers that you had come here, I decided to take advantage of _your_ hospitality. I'm just wild to see the dear boy! Is his ranch far? For you know," she added, with a malicious look at the girl's pale face; "I must not keep him waiting, now that I am here." "You won't find him prosperous." It hurt Rosalind to say that, but the hurt was slightly offset by a savage resentment that gripped her when she thought of how quickly Hester had thrown Trevison over when she had discovered that he was penniless. And she had a desperate hope that the dismal aspect of Trevison's future would appall Hester--as it would were the woman still the mercenary creature she had been ten years before. But Hester looked at her with grave imperturbability. "I heard something about his trouble. About some land, isn't it? I didn't learn the particulars. Tell me about it--won't you, dearie?" Rosalind's story of Trevison's difficulties did not have the effect that she anticipated. "The poor, dear boy!" said Hester--and she seemed genuinely moved. Rosalind gulped hard over the shattered ruins of this last hope and got up, fighting against an inhospitable impulse to order Hester away. She made some slight excuse and slipped to her room, where she stayed long, elemental passions battling riotously within her.