"You!" she faltered, in a pitiful, small voice. "You--" Stratton held her closer, a troubled tenderness sweeping the anger from his eyes. "But--but, Mary--" he stammered--"what difference does--" Suddenly her nerves snapped under the culminating strain of the past few hours. "Difference!" she cried hysterically. "Difference!" Her heart lay like a cold, dead thing within her; she felt utterly miserable and alone. "You--My father! Oh, God!" She made a weak effort to escape from his embrace. Then, abruptly, her slim, girlish figure grew limp, her head fell back against Stratton's shoulder, her eyes closed. CHAPTER XXXVI TWO TRAILS CONVERGE Mrs. Archer sat alone in the ranch-house living-room, doing absolutely nothing. As a matter of fact, she had little use for those minor solaces of knitting or crocheting which soothe the waking hours of so many elderly women. More than once, indeed, she had been heard to state with mild emphasis that when she was no longer able to entertain herself with human nature, or, at the worst, with an interesting book, it would be high time to retire into a nunnery, or its modern equivalent. Sitting there beside one of the sunny southern windows, her small, faintly wrinkled hands lying reposefully in her lap, she made a dainty, attractive picture of age which was yet not old. Her hair was frankly gray, but luxuriant and crisply waving. No one would have mistaken the soft, faded pink of her complexion, well preserved though it was, for that of a young woman. But her eyes, bright, eager, humorous, changing with every mood, were full of the fire of eternal youth. Just now there was a thoughtful retrospection in their clear depths. Occasionally she glanced interestedly out of the window, or turned her head questioningly toward the closed door of her niece's bedroom. But for the most part she sat quietly thinking, and the tolerant, humorous curve of her lips showed that her thoughts were far from disagreeable. "Astonishing!" she murmured presently. "Really quite amazing! And yet things could scarcely have turned out more--" She paused, a faint wrinkle marring the smoothness of her forehead. "Really, I must guard against this habit of talking to myself," she went on with mild vexation. "They say it's one of the surest signs of age. Come in!" The outer door opened and Buck Stratton entered. Pausing for an instant on the threshold, he glanced eagerly about the room, his face falling a little as he walked over to where Mrs. Archer sat. She looked up at him for a moment in silence, surveying with frank approval his long length, his wide chest and lean flanks, the clean-cut face which showed such few signs of fatigue or strain. Then her glance grew quizzical. "You give yourself away too quickly," she smiled. "Even an old woman scarcely feels complimented when a man looks downcast at the sight of her."