“You are a hard man,” she said, ignoring his stammer. “I quite understand why you have fled into this land from your own people. I know what you seek--and you will not find it. There is no peace over the horizon. Listen!” She held up one hand. Crawford, listening, heard the sound of distant gun-shots, saw swift distress flit into her face. “They are killing my friends the animals,” she said in a mournful tone. “This has been a sanctuary for man and beast alike, until now; those Stone Men are murdering my friends. And are you better than they? There is no love in your heart, for I can see into it--I have seen into it while you lay sick and muttering. You do not love your country, your fellow-men--anything! Have you ever loved, indeed? Have you any capacity for love? Or are you, too, one of the Stone Men?” Crawford was taken terribly aback. Here, in the presence of this woman, he was suddenly speechless--he, who had dared call a king a poltroon to his very face! He had never looked forward to his actual meeting with the Star Woman; he had left that to the future. Now he found himself indescribably impressed by the quiet poise, the splendid personality of this girl, who was hardly yet a woman. Her age, he guessed, could not be much more than twenty--within a few years of it, at least. He found himself strangely moved. It was as though she had some power which broke down all his hard shell of materialism, touching the very spirit within him. He suddenly understood why she was a person reverenced by all the red tribes. He felt that a touch of her hand would be a benison. Yet that final question of hers went straight down into the depths of his soul with its hurt, and the pipe fell unheeded from his hand. Once he had loved, indeed, and had seen his young wife stricken down by a bullet from Dutch William’s troopers. And he had loved Phelim Burke---- “I am what God and man have made me,” he said, but the proud words faltered. Upon that, as he met her intent gaze, his face changed; the harshly masterful lines of it softened, and a swift glitter of tears stood in his blue eyes. And she, seeing these things, was startled. “You,” he went on softly, “you who ask--what then do you know of love?” She put a hand to her breast, and Crawford was dimly aware that he had given blow for blow. Somehow, this question had hurt her. A heartache sprang into her eyes. “Ah! I think that there are two different men in you,” she said quietly, and Crawford was astonished that she spoke of him, not of herself. “I have been angry because, had it not been for you, Maclish and those Stone Men might have stayed away. But I have been wrong, very wrong. You are not what I thought--you see, I have not looked into your eyes before this! After all, I think that you are an agent of destiny, which we cannot escape----” Crawford started. “Perrot said that! And now you!”