The reaction made her lips quiver and there swept over her with renewed force that wave of despair which had been gaining strength all through those interminable black hours. She had done her best to combat it. Over and over again she told herself that the situation was far from hopeless. Something must happen. Some one--mostly she thought of Buck, though she did not name him even to herself--would come to her aid. It was incredible that in this day and generation a person could be successfully carried off even by one as crafty, resourceful, and unscrupulous as Tex Lynch. But in spite of all her reasoning there remained in the back of Mary's mind a feeling of cold horror, born of those few sentences she had overheard while Pedro was saddling the horses. Like a poisonous serpent, it reared its ugly head persistently, to demolish in an instant her most specious arguments. The very thought of it now filled her with the same fear and dread that had overwhelmed her when the incredible words first burned into her consciousness, and made her glance with a sudden, sharp terror at the man beside her. She met a stare from his bold, heavy-lidded eyes that sent the blood flaming into her cheeks. "Well?" queried Lynch, smiling. "Feelin' better, now it's mornin'?" The girl made no answer. Hastily averting her eyes, she rode on in silence, lips pressed together and chin a little tilted. "Sulking, eh?" drawled Lynch. "What's the good? Yuh can't keep that sort of thing up forever. After we're--married--" He paused significantly. The girl's lip quivered but she set her teeth into it determinedly. Presently, with an effort, she forced herself to speak. "Aren't you rather wasting time trying to--to frighten me with that sort of rubbish?" she asked coldly. "In these days marriage isn't something that can be forced." The man's laugh was not agreeable. "Oh, is that so?" he inquired. "You're likely to learn a thing or two before long, I'll say." His tone was so carelessly confident, so entirely assured, that in an instant her pitiful little pretense of courage was swept away. "It isn't so!" she cried, turning on him with wide eyes and quivering lips. "You couldn't-- There isn't a--real clergyman who'd do--do such a thing. No one could force me to--to-- Why, I'd rather die than--" She paused, choking. Lynch shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, no, yuh wouldn't," he drawled. "Dyin' is mighty easy to talk about, but when yuh get right down to it, I reckon you'd change yore mind. I don't see why yore so dead set against me," he added. "I ain't so hard to look at, am I? An' with me as yore husband, things will--will be mighty different on the ranch. You'll never have to pinch an' worry like yuh do now."