"Hot and dusty." Saunders mounted deliberately. "Good night, Alf; I must get out home and eat something." A few minutes later as Saunders was slowly riding past Drake's front gate he noticed a figure on the inside of the yard close to the fence. It was Dolly. She opened the gate and came out. He reined in and, hat in hand, sprang to the ground. Her head was covered with a thin white shawl held beneath her chin, and her pale face showed between the folds as pure and patient as a suffering nun's. He saw that she was trying to speak, but was unable to do so. "What is it, Dolly?" he faltered. "I suppose your father got back?" "Yes." It was a bare labial whisper. She nodded; she put her cold hand into his great, warm eager one, and he held it as tenderly as if it had been a dying sparrow. "I am glad I happened to reach him," he said, in an effort to relieve her embarrassment. "We had it nip and tuck," he added, lightly. "My lungs are lined with dust." He felt her fingers and palm faintly flutter. "Oh, oh, Mr. Saunders!" she gulped. "I can never, never thank you enough. I met him down the road just now. He actually cried. I have never seen him give way before." Saunders stared helplessly. He knew not what to say. In the moonlight he saw tears like drops of dew rise in her eyes and trickle down her cheeks. "You must not cry," he managed to say. "Don't break down, Dolly; you have been so brave all along." She released the shawl beneath her chin and began to fumble in her pocket for her handkerchief. Seeing she was unable to find it, he took out his own, and while he still held her hand with his left he tenderly dried her tears. Suddenly she clasped his hand with both of hers. "I suppose you know everything--" she faltered. "How silly I have been to think--to imagine that Mr. Mostyn really meant--" A great sob struggled up within her and broke on her lips. "I know _this_, Dolly." His face hardened to the appearance of stone in the white light from the sky. "I know that from this moment on you must never give him another thought." "You don't understand a woman's feelings," she returned, in the saddest of intonations. "I know what you say is right and true, but--it is like this; he seems to have--died! I think of him only as dead, and a woman with a heart cannot at a moment's notice put her dead out of mind. I can't, somehow, blame him. You see, I think I understand him. He is not going to be happy, and I'm afraid I'll never be able to forget that fact. He was trying to get right. I saw his struggle. I did not fully know what it meant when we parted, but I see it all now. I thought I could help him, but it is too late--too late; and oh, that is the terrible part! I feel somewhat like a mother must feel who sees a son, hopelessly wrong, taken from her sight forever. Oh, I pity him, pity him, pity him!"