He was tremblingly conscious of amaze at her--of something wonderful in her. She did not heed Joe, who stepped aside a little; she did not see Nas Ta Bega, who sat motionless on a log, apparently oblivious to her presence. “You knew he came?” “Yes, Fay. I was awake when--they rode in. I watched them. I sat up all night. I saw them ride away.” “If you knew when he came why didn't you run to me--to get to me before he did?” Her question was unanswerable. It had the force of a blow. It stunned him. Its sharp, frank directness sprang from a simplicity and a strength that had not been nurtured in the life he had lived. So far men had wandered from truth and nature! “I came to you as soon as I was able,” she went on. “I must have fainted. I just had to drag myself around.... And now I can tell you.” He was powerless to reply, as if she had put another unanswerable question. What did she mean to tell him? What might she not tell him? She loosed her hands from his and lifted them to his shoulders, and that was the first conscious action of feeling, of intimacy, which she had ever shown. It quite robbed Shefford of strength, and in spite of his sorrow there was an indefinable thrill in her touch. He looked at her, saw the white-and-gold beauty that was hers yesterday and seemed changed to-day, and he recognized Fay Larkin in a woman he did not know. “Listen! He came--” “Fay, don't--tell me,” interrupted Shefford. “I WILL tell you,” she said. Did the instinct of love teach her how to mitigate his pain? Shefford felt that, as he felt the new-born strength in her. “Listen,” she went on. “He came when I was undressing for bed. I heard the horse. He knocked on the door. Something terrible happened to me then. I felt sick and my head wasn't clear. I remember next--his being in the room--the lamp was out--I couldn't see very well. He thought I was sick and he gave me a drink and let the air blow in on me through the window. I remember I lay back in the chair and I thought. And I listened. When would you come? I didn't feel that you could leave me there alone with him. For his coming was different this time. That pain like a blade in my side!... When it came I was not the same. I loved you. I understood then. I belonged to you. I couldn't let him touch me. I had never been his wife. When I realized this--that he was there, that you might suffer for it--I cried right out. “He thought I was sick. He worked over me. He gave me medicine. And then he prayed. I saw him, in the dark, on his knees, praying for me. That seemed strange. Yet he was kind, so kind that I begged him to let me go. I was not a Mormon. I couldn't marry him. I begged him to let me go.