Lucy clasped her hands together hard and bowed her head. He was bending over her, his shoulder touching hers. She heard his voice, soft and rich with love, whispering, "Lucy, darling!" And suddenly, scarcely knowing what she did, she lifted her head and looked into his eyes. Instantly his arms were about her, and he heard her murmuring, "I do love you! Oh, I do love you!" He bent his ardent face to hers, but before their lips met she started away, freeing herself from his encircling arms. "Stop!" she cried, putting out a forbidding hand, as she moved her horse away. "You have made me tell you, against my will, that I love you. Now you must listen while I tell you who I am." There was a suggestion of defiance in the poise of her head and in the flashing of her eyes as they looked squarely into his. "And you must understand," she went on, "that after I tell you this I want you to forget everything that has passed between us this afternoon, just as I shall do. For I am the daughter of Sumner L. Delafield!" In an instant his arms were about her again. "Lucy, dearest, you've told me no news! I've known it since yesterday." She struggled to free herself. "But my father--you hate him--you--you wish to kill him--I heard what you said to him that day at your ranch, last Spring--and afterward I happened to find out who he is." A wave of crimson deepened the color of his sunbrowned face. "All that is dead and buried," he said, "and I am ashamed of it, now. I want you to help me forget that I allowed such base thoughts to master me so long. I'm going to your father this afternoon to tell him that I have forgiven the old debt, and everything else, and to ask him to forgive me. My poor little girl! I never dreamed your dear heart was being worried by that affair!" She let him fold her in his caress, whispering happily, "I knew all the time you wouldn't do it--I knew you wouldn't hurt daddy, or anybody." A loud clap of thunder rolled and echoed over the mountains, and a splash of raindrops fell on their faces. Conrad looked at the dense black clouds and at the gray veil dropping athwart the mountains, and turned to Lucy with alarm in his face. "We must start back at once and ride down that canyon for all we're worth! This storm is going to be a corker, but maybe we can beat the worst of it. I've done wrong to bring you so far--but I can't regret it now, sweetheart!"