He read and re-read the letter. He would have read it a third time, but the tears blinded his eyes and he crushed it into his pocket. His heart yearned for her. It cried out to him in a great pity. It tore him so that he was drawn to words spoken aloud to express his feelings. "Poor gal," he murmured. "Poor gal. Oh, my Jessie, what you done--what you done?" He dashed a hand across his eyes to wipe away the mist of tears that obscured his vision and stood up. He was face to face with a situation that might well have confounded him. But here, where only his heart and not his head was appealed to, there was no confusion. The woman had said he could not understand. She had referred to her motherhood. But Scipio was a man who could understand just that. He could understand with his heart, where his head might have failed him. He read into the distracted woman's letter a meaning that perhaps no other man could have read into it. He read a human soul's agony at the severing of itself from all that belonged to its spiritual side. He read more than the loss of the woman's offspring. He read the despairing thought, perhaps unconscious, of a woman upon whom repentance has begun its work. And his simple heart went out to her, yearning, loving. He knew that her appeal was granted even before he acknowledged it to himself. And strangely enough the coming of that letter--he did not pause to think how it had come--produced a miraculous change in him. His spirit rose thrilling with hope, and filled with a courage which, but a few moments before, seemed to have gone from him forever. He did not understand, he did not pause to think. How could he? To him she was still his Jessie, the love and hope of his life. It was her hand that had penned that letter. It was her woman's heart appealing to his mercy. "God in heaven," he cried, appealing to the blue vault above him in which the stars were beginning to appear. "I can't refuse her. I just can't. She wants her so--my poor, poor Jessie." * * * * * It was late in the evening when Scipio returned from the camp driving Minky's buckskin mule and ancient buckboard. His mind was made up. He would start out directly after breakfast on the morrow. He had resorted to a pitiful little subterfuge in borrowing Minky's buckboard. He had told the storekeeper that he had heard of a prospect some distance out, and he wanted to inspect it. He said he intended to take Vada with him, but wished to leave Jamie behind. Minky, as a member of the Trust, had promptly lent him the conveyance, and volunteered to have Jamie looked after down at the store by Birdie until he returned. So everything was made easy for him, and he came back to his home beyond the dumps with the first feeling of contentment he had experienced since his wife had deserted him.