Perhaps it might be gone for ever? Strange to say, though I had drawn some sweet inferences from those neglected flowers, every time the _bouquet_ came back to my memory, it produced a palpable feeling of pain! He who so cunningly sued, might hope for some measure of success? And she, so sweetly solicited--more dangerous than if boldly beset--had her heart withstood the sapping of such a crafty besieger! _My_ influence might indeed be gone; or, if a remnant of it still existed, it might not turn the scale against that of her father--that fearful father! What should he care for one child, who had already abetted another to her shame? Possessed by these thoughts, then, I tried not to turn Marian from her purpose. On the contrary, I rather encouraged it. On her influence with Lilian I had now placed my chief reliance. Without that, I should have been almost deprived of hope. It might turn out that Lilian no longer loved me. Time, or absence, might have inverted the _stylus_ upon the tender page of her young heart; and some other image may have become impressed upon its yielding tablet? If so, my own would sorely grieve; but, even if so, I would not that hers should be corrupted. She must not be the victim of a villain, if my hand could hinder it! "No, Lilian! though loved and lost, I shall not add to the bitterness of your betrayal. My cup of grief will possess sufficient acerbity without mingling with it the gall of revenge." CHAPTER NINETY ONE. THE NIGHT-CAMP. We again rode through the upper canon of the Huerfano, keeping along the bank of the stream. Farther on we came to the forking of two trails-- the more southern one leading up to the Cuchada, to the pass of Sangre de Cristo. By it had the gold-seekers gone in company with the dragoons--the latter _en route_ for the new military post of Port Massachusetts--the former, no doubt, intending to take the line of the Gila or Mohave to their still distant destination--the gold-bearing placers of California?