"You mustn't fight him," she suggested coaxingly. "It interferes with the work." "Fight who?" he demanded and then he snorted. "What, me make friends with Stoddard? Why, it's that crooked hound that's at the bottom of all this. He's the man that's made all the trouble. Why, we were doing fine, girl; we were regular pardners and I wasn't drinking a drop. I was trying to make good and show you how I loved you when he butted in on the game. He saw he couldn't beat us as long as we stood together and so he sent out that damnable Mrs. Hardesty. He hired her on purpose and she worked me for a sucker by feeding me up with big words. She told me I was a wonder, and a world-beater for a gambler, and then--well, you know the rest. I went back to New York and they trimmed me right, and if it wasn't for you I'd be broke. No, I'll never forget what you did for me, Mary; and I'll never forget what he did, either!" "No, I hope you won't," she said, winking fast, "because that's what's ruined your life. He can always whip you when it comes to business, because you fight in the open and he never shows his hand. And he's absolutely unscrupulous--he'd think no more of ruining our happiness than--than you do, when you're fighting mad. Oh, if you knew how I suffered during all those long months when you were stock-gambling and going around with--her." "Aw, now, Mary," he soothed, wiping away the sweat from his brow; and then he took her into his arms. "Now, don't cry," he said, "because I went back there to look for you--I paid out thousands of dollars for detectives. And when I saw you that time, when you came down the stairway in that opera house back in New York, I never went near her again. I quit her at the door and had detectives out everywhere; but, you went away, you never gave me a chance!" "Well," she sobbed, "we all make mistakes, but--but I was so ashamed, to be jealous of _her_. Couldn't you see what she was? Couldn't you tell that type of woman? Oh, Rimrock, it was perfectly awful! Everybody that saw you, every woman that looked at her, must have--oh, I just can't bear to think about it!" "My God!" groaned Rimrock; and then he was silent, looking sober-eyed away into space. It came over him at last what this woman had borne from him and yet she had been faithful to the end. She had even befriended him after he had accused her of treachery, but she had reserved the privilege of hating him. Perhaps that was the woman of it, he did not know; if so, he had never observed it before. Or perhaps--he straightened up and drew her closer--perhaps she was the One Woman in the world! Perhaps she was the only woman he would ever know who would love him for himself, and take no thought for his money. She had loved him when he was poor----