She put down her work and rose slowly to her feet before him. She could be very regal sometimes. Brewster knew it, and Cairness guessed it; but it was the first time it had come within Landor's experience, and he was a little awed. "I wish you to read it, John," she said quietly. He hesitated still. "I don't doubt you," he told her. "You do doubt me. If you did not, it would never occur to you to deny it. You doubt me now, and you will doubt me still more if you don't read it. In justice to me you must." It was very short, but he held it a long time before he gave it back. "And do you care for him, too?" he asked, looking her straight in the eyes. It was a very calm question, put--he realized it with exasperation--as a father might have put it. She told him that she did, quite as calmly. Her manner and her tone said it was very unfortunate, that the whole episode was unfortunate, but that it was not her fault. He went over to the window and stood looking out of it, his hands clasped behind his back. Some children were playing tag around the flag-staff, and he watched a long-limbed small daughter of the frontier dodging and running, and was conscious of being glad that she touched the goal. It was characteristic of Felipa that she forgot him altogether and reread the letter, her breath coming in audible gasps. "I give this to a friend," it ran, "to be delivered into your own hands, because I must tell you that, though I should never see you again--for the life I lead is hazardous, and chance may at any time take you away forever--I shall love you always. You will not be angry with me, I know. You were not that night by the campfire, and it is not the unwaveringly good woman who resents being told she is loved, in the spirit I have said it to you. I do not ask for so much as your friendship in return, but only that you remember that my life and devotion are yours, and that, should the time ever come that you need me, you send for me. I will come. I will never say this to you again, even should I see you; but it is true, now and for all time." Landor turned away from the window and looked at her. It was in human nature that she had never seemed so beautiful before. Perhaps it was, too, because there was warmth in her face, the stress of life that was more than physical, at last.