"Oh, don't say it, Lance!" she cried, her arms tightening convulsively around his body, the tears streaming down her lifted face, washing away the blood. A great coughing sob shook her from head to foot. "Oh, Lance, don't--don't do it! I know--" she hastened pitifully--"I know I haven't got any rights. I know I've wore out your love. But oh, please, honey, come with me and let's run." Through the man's dazed senses the truth had made its way at last. He sat wonder-smitten. The weeping woman on her knees before him looking up into his face, with eyes from which the veil of pride and indifference was rent away, eyes out of which the sheer, hungry, unashamed adoration gazed. "Lance," she began at last, in a voice that was scarce more than a breath, a mere shadow of sound, "I've never told you. Look like I always waited for you to say. But since--long ago--ever since you and me was boy and girl--and [386] girl together--They was never anybody for me but you--you, dear. They's nothing you could do or be that would make it different. I--my heart--If they take you away from me, Lance, darlin', they might just as well kill me." Lance reached around and got the two hands that were clinging to him so frantically. He held them, one over the other, in his own and, bending his head, kissed them again and again. He touched the loose hair about her forehead, then mutely laid his lips against its fairness. He lifted his head and looked long into her eyes with a look which she could not understand. "You--you're a-comin', Lance?" she breathed. He shook his head ever so little. "Callista," he said very softly, and the name was a caress,-- "mine--my girl--my Callista, you're a-goin' to help me do the right thing." She started back a little; she caught her breath, and her blue eyes dilated upon him. "The right thing," her husband repeated, with something that was almost a smile on his lips. "And that's to ride over home and give myself up. God bless you, dear, I can do it now with a quiet mind. Oh, Callista--Callista--I'm happier this minute than I ever was before in my life! Whatever comes, I can face it now."