She met him with clear, level eyes. Her curt, crisp speech was full of meaning. He looked long at her, with a yearning denied for many a day. Her face was the same, yet wonderfully changed; the same in line and color, but different in soul and spirit. The old sombre shadow lay deep in the eyes, but to it had been added gleam of will and reflection of thought. The whole face had been refined and transformed. “Mescal! What's happened? You're not the same. You seem almost happy. Have you--has he--given you up?” “Don't you know Mormons better than that? The thing is the same--so far as they're concerned.” “But Mescal--are you going to marry him? For God's sake, tell me.” “Never.” It was a woman's word, instant, inflexible, desperate. With a deep breath Hare realized where the girl had changed. “Still you're promised, pledged to him! How'll you get out of it?” “I don't know how. But I'll cut out my tongue, and be dumb as my poor peon before I'll speak the word that'll make me Snap Naab's wife.” There was a long silence. Mescal smoothed out Bolly's mane, and Hare gazed up at the walls with eyes that did not see them. Presently he spoke. “I'm afraid for you. Snap watched us to-day at dinner.” “He's jealous.” “Suppose he sees this scarf?” Mescal laughed defiantly. It was bewildering for Hare to hear her. “He'll--Mescal, I may yet come to this.” Hare's laugh echoed Mescal's as he pointed to the enclosure under the wall, where the graves showed bare and rough. Her warm color fled, but it flooded back, rich, mantling brow and cheek and neck. “Snap Naab will never kill you,” she said impulsively. “Mescal.” She swiftly turned her face away as his hand closed on hers. “Mescal, do you love me?” The trembling of her fingers and the heaving of her bosom lent his hope conviction. “Mescal,” he went on, “these past months have been years, years of toiling, thinking, changing, but always loving. I'm not the man you knew. I'm wild-- I'm starved for a sight of you. I love you! Mescal, my desert flower!” She raised her free hand to his shoulder and swayed toward him. He held her a moment, clasped tight, and then released her. “I'm quite mad!” he exclaimed, in a passion of self-reproach. “What a risk I'm putting on you! But I couldn't help it. Look at me-- Just once- -please-- Mescal, just one look.... Now go.”