Sim Gage looked at him quietly. "Every one of them words you said to me, Doc, is plumb true, and it ain't enough. I told her my own self, that first day, and since then, it was a blessing she was blind. But look-a-here, I reckon you don't understand how things is. You say you're going to build a house up there, and help me get a start. That's fine. Because hers is the other one, my old house. I wish't I could get some sheets and pillow cases down here while I'm right here now--I'd like to fix her up in there better'n what she is. I'd even like to have a tablecloth, like. But you understand, that's for _her_, not me. That's _her_ house, and not mine. She can't see. It's a God's blessing she can't. And what you said is so--she mustn't _ever_ know, not now ner no time, what--Sim Gage really is." Doctor Barnes' voice was out of control. He turned once more to this newly revealed Sim Gage, a man whom he had not hitherto understood. "Marriage means all sorts of things. It covers up things, begins things, ends things. That's true." "It ends things for her, Doc--it don't begin nothing fer me, you understand. It is, but it isn't. I'd never step a foot across that door sill, night or day--you understand that, don't you? You didn't think _that_ for one minute, did you? You didn't think I was so low-down I couldn't understand a thing like _that_, did you? It's because she's blind and don't know the truth; and because she's plumb up against it. That's why." "Oh, damn you!" said Doctor Barnes savagely. "You understand me better than I did you. Yes--it's the only way." "It sure is funny how funny things get mixed up sometimes, ain't it, Doc?" remarked Sim Gage. "But now, part of my coming down here was about a minister." "Well," said Doctor Barnes, desperately, feeling that he was party to a crime, "it's priest day next Sunday. We have five or six different sorts of priests and ministers that come in here once a month, and they all come the same Sunday, so they can watch each other--every fellow is afraid the other fellow will get some souls saved the wrong way if he isn't there on the job too. Listen, Gage--I'll bring one of these chaps--Church of England man, I reckon, for he hasn't got much to do down here--up to your ranch next Sunday morning. We've got to get this over with, or we'll all be crazy--I will, anyhow. When I show up, you two be ready to be married. "Does that go, Sim Gage?" he concluded, looking into the haggard and stubbly face of the squalid-figured man before him. "It goes," said Sim Gage. CHAPTER XXI WITH THIS RING It was the Sabbath, and the summer sun was casting its southering light even with the eaves of Sim Gage's half-ruined house. It was high noon.