He would walk through the room--wearing rich-man's shoes so that the floors would not be marred--and dream of the baby, trying all the while to shut Doris out of his mind. She had not seemed like _his_ Doris, this proud young woman who rustled her silken gowns through the house, flashed her jewels and spoke imperiously to her servants. No, that was not the Doris he had loved. His Doris had been tanned and frank of eye and of speech. She had been lithe and competent, and looked life honestly in the face. His heart was very empty, sometimes, very hungry for that Doris whom he had loved. He even caught himself dreaming about her, now and then,--almost forgetting the other Doris who had kissed him good-by because others were watching and would gossip if the parting seemed too cold. A Judas kiss, it had seemed to Bill. He tried to forget it, lest his hatred grow against her. Every Sunday, Tommy would sweep and dust and polish,--and dream, perchance, some hidden little dream of his own. Bill would disappear for hours, coming in after sunset with tired eyes and with lines beside his mouth. And neither would speak of how the time had been spent. But the rest of Parowan was given over to the winds of the desert spaces. Doors began to sag, windows rattled. When the wind blew strong, corrugated iron roof would hammer like anvil blows. Old papers swept through the streets to lodge ghostlike in the corners. It was a place of desolation, watched over proudly by the big house on the hill, with its sheeted furniture and its big, plate-glass windows that looked and looked, and framed no face but Bill's, staring out through them moodily upon the town and the desert beyond. For a time there had been a certain somber activity about the camp, daytimes. Men hauled away salvage where ownership could be proved to Bill's satisfaction,--and Bill was hard to satisfy, these days. Precious time was lost from their mine while he and Tommy guarded against looting. For practically all of Parowan belonged to Bill Dale, and he was showing himself hard, grasping, suspicious, a man who carried a gun for the first time in years, and who would shoot, give him provocation.