She glanced at him with relief in her eyes, a quick smile coming happily to her lips. He was busy with the account of calves and grown stock which he had drawn from his wallet, the check lying by his hand. His face taken as an index to it, there was not much lightness in his heart. Soon he had acquitted himself of his stewardship and given the check into her hand. Then he rose to leave her. For a moment he stood silent, as if turning his thoughts. "I'm going away," he said, looking out of the window down upon the tops of the naked cottonwoods along the river. Just around the corner of the table she was standing, half facing him, looking at him with what seemed almost compassionate tenderness, so sympathetic were her eyes. She touched his hand where it lay with fingers on his hat-brim. "Is it so hard for you to forget her, Duke?" He looked at her frankly, no deceit in his eyes, but a mild surprise to hear her chide him so. "If I could forget of her what no forgiving soul should remember, I'd feel more like a man," he said. "I thought--I thought--" she stammered, bending her head, her voice soft and low, "you were grieving for her, Duke. Forgive me." "Taterleg is leaving tonight," he said, overlooking her soft appeal. "I thought I'd go at the same time." "It will be so lonesome here on the ranch without you, Duke--lonesome as it never was lonesome before." "Even if there was anything I could do around the ranch any longer, with the cattle all gone and nobody left to cut the fence, I wouldn't be any use, dodging in for every blizzard that came along, as the doctor says I must." "I've come to depend on you as I never depended on anybody in my life." "And I couldn't do that, you know, any more than I'd be content to lie around doing nothing." "You've been square with me on everything, from the biggest to the least. I never knew before what it was to lie down in security and get up in peace. You've fought and suffered for me here in a measure far in excess of anything that common loyalty demanded of you, and I've given you nothing in return. It will be like losing my right hand, Duke, to see you go." "Taterleg's going to Wyoming to marry a girl he used to know back in Kansas. We can travel together part of the way." "If it hadn't been for you they'd have robbed me of everything by now--killed me, maybe--for I couldn't have fought them alone, and there was no other help." "I thought maybe in California an old half-invalid might pick up and get some blood put into him again." "You came out of the desert, as if God sent you, when my load was heavier than I could bear. It will be like losing my right eye, Duke, to see you go." "A man that's a fool for only a little while, even, is bound to leave false impressions and misunderstandings of himself, no matter how wide his own eyes have been opened, or how long. So I've resigned my job on the ranch here with you, Vesta, and I'm going away."