"And Juan--is it all right about him?" she asked. "Juan has wiped the slate clean. Mr. Crawford wants to know when Bonita is to be married. He has a wedding present for her." She was all happy smiles when he left her. Late that afternoon Bob Hart reached town. He and Dave were alone in the Jackpot offices when the latter forced himself to open a subject that had always been closed between them. Sanders came to it reluctantly. No man had ever found a truer friend than he in Bob Hart. The thing he was going to do seemed almost like a stab in the back. "How about you and Joyce, Bob?" he asked abruptly. The eyes of the two met and held. "What about us, Dave?" "It's like this," Sanders said, flushed and embarrassed. "You were here first. You're entitled to first chance. I meant to keep out of it, but things have come up in spite of me. I want to do whatever seems right to you. My idea is to go away till--till you've settled how you stand with her. Is that fair?" Bob smiled, ruefully. "Fair enough, old-timer. But no need of it. I never had a chance with Joyce, not a dead man's look-in. Found that out before ever you came home. The field's clear far as I'm concerned. Hop to it an' try yore luck." Dave took his advice, within the hour. He found Joyce at home in the kitchen. She was making pies energetically. The sleeves of her dress were rolled up to the elbows and there was a dab of flour on her temple where she had brushed back a rebellious wisp of hair. She blushed prettily at sight of her caller. "I didn't know it was you when I called to come in. Thought it was Keith playing a trick on me." Both of them were embarrassed. She did not know what to do with him in the kitchen and he did not know what to do with himself. The girl was acutely conscious that yesterday she had flung herself into his arms without shame. "I'll go right on with my pies if you don't mind," she said. "I can talk while I work." "Yes." But neither of them talked. She rolled pie-crust while the silence grew significant. "Are your burns still painful?" she asked at last, to make talk. "Yes--no. Beg pardon, I--I was thinking of something else." Joyce flashed one swift look at him. She knew that an emotional crisis was upon her. He was going to brush aside the barriers between them. Her pulses began to beat fast. There was the crash of music in her blood. "I've got to tell you, Joyce," he said abruptly. "It's been a fight for me ever since I came home. I love you. I think I always have--even when I was in prison." She waited, the eyes in her lovely, flushed face shining. "I had no right to think of you then," he went on. "I kept away from you. I crushed down hope. I nursed my bitterness to prove to me there could never be anything between us. Then Miller confessed and--and we took our walk over the hills. After that the sun shone. I came out from the mists where I had been living."