On Betty’s desk at the Quarter Circle D E an unopened letter lay awaiting her. She had never seen Hollister’s writing, but at the first glance after she picked up the envelope her heart began to hammer. She knew who the message was from. The postmark was Wild Horse. Evidently the mailman had delivered it an hour or two earlier. She tore the flap and read: Ever since I saw you last I have been close to happiness in spite of my distress. You love me. I tell myself that over and over. I cling to it and rest in it. For this is the greatest thing that ever came into my life. I wish, dear, dear friend, that I could show you my heart. I wish you could understand how great is the temptation to throw away discretion and accept this wonderful gift. A thousand times I have been over the ground, trying to persuade myself that you are right and my caution a coward’s fear with no basis in reason. But I can’t. I can’t. Before I dared to take your life into my keeping, I would have to be sure. And how can I be? How can I _know_ that this horrible thing won’t rise up some day and throttle your happiness? Why did I not meet you before I had given hostages to this destructive menace? I keep asking myself why. I can find no answer that is not born in bitter mockery. If you could know what you have done for me, how you have rebuilt my faith in good, in God! No man ever had so wonderful a friend. That was all, except the signature at the bottom. But it made her heart sing. Her doubts were at rest. He loved her. That was all she wanted to know. The difficulties in his mind would vanish. Her love would beat them down. What scruples, what fears could stand against this joy that flooded them both? She longed to tell him so, to pour her heart out in what was to be the first love-letter she had ever written. Yet she was not impatient of the delays forced on her by ranch details, by Ruth’s imperious demands for attention. She could attend to these competently and without irritation because subconsciously her being floated in happiness. Life had always given Betty what she wanted. It was unthinkable that there should be withheld from her that which was the crown of all her hopes. Alone at the desk in the living-room, after everybody else on the ranch had retired, Betty gave herself up to the luxury of dreams. She felt very wide awake. It would not be possible to sleep until she had written an answer. There was no hurry about it. She wanted to take plenty of time to think out what she wanted to say before she even started on it. When she began to write, her thoughts flew fast. They kept busy the flashing finger-tips that transmitted the messages to the white page on the carriage of the typewriter. The sentences were short, impulsive, energetic. They expressed the surge of eagerness in her.