No one knew her on the train, for she had drawn her veil close and sat very still. It seemed that she went near the mine in some strange way, and at the switch Williams got on the train to stop her and persuade her to return. He was terribly agitated. "Didn't you know Mart is sick?" he said, in a tone of reproach. It seemed as if a broad river of years flowed between herself and the girl who used to see this queer little man enter her hotel door--but he was unchanged. "You can't do this thing!" he went on, his lips trembling with emotion. "What thing?" she asked. "Fordyce tells me you're going to throw poor old Mart overboard." "That's my notion--I can't be his wife, and so I'm getting out," she answered. "But, girl, you can't do that!" and he swore in his excitement. "Mart needs you--we all need you. It'll kill him." "I can't help it!" she answered, with infinite weariness in throat and brain. "I pass it up, and go back to my brother." "I don't see why." "Because I've no right to Mart's money." "You're crazy to think of such a thing. You a queen! Who's goin' to catch the money when you drop it?" he asked, and helplessly added: "I don't believe you. You're kiddin', you're tryin' us out." "I'm doing nothing to earn this luxury." "Doing nothing! My God, you've made Mart Haney over new. You've converted him--as they say, you've redeemed him. Let me tell you something, little sister, Mart worships you. It does him good just to _see_ you. You don't expect the moon to fry bacon, do you? Stars don't run pumps! Mart is satisfied. Every time you speak to him or pass by him he gets happy all the way through--I know, for I feel just the same." There was something in his eloquence that went to the heart of the dreaming girl. If any one in her world was to be trusted it was this ugly little man, who never presumed to ask even a smile for himself, and whose unswerving loyalty to Mart made her own flight a base and cruel act; and yet even as he pleaded his face faded and she fancied herself stepping from the train in Sibley, unnoticed by even the hackmen, who used to bring the humbler passengers of each train to the door of the Golden Eagle Hotel. She walked up the sidewalk, surprised to find it changed to brick. The hotel was gone, and in its place stood a saloon marked, "Haney's Place." This hardened her heart again. "That settles it!" she said, bitterly. "He's gone back to his old business."