"Dear heart, try to think of me and remember me to-day, even though I am so far away from home and you. I am sorry that I have no other valentine to send you, but there is more love in this scrap of paper than in all the valentines in creation. I am thinking just now how, a year ago, you and I were sitting in the dear old home parlor, making valentines for the neighbors' children, and when I think of the difference between then and now, I feel as sad and depressed as the wailing pines around me. I have had such strange premonitions to-day, too; I seem to see such a long vista of years before me and you do not seem to have a share in any of them. Dear heart, I want you to promise me that you will never forget me, no matter where I may be, whether I am living or dead. If I know this it will take away, in part at least, my loneliness and my feeling of desertion on this desolate ranch. Good-bye, dear, and God bless you. Your Dan." The paper dropped from Miss Hicks' nerveless fingers as she remembered that first long year of separation--a lonely year, even though it was she herself who had urged Dan to be independent of his rich, crotchety old uncle and to seek his own fortune away somewhere, so that he might be the man she wanted him to be. She remembered achingly how long she had waited for another letter, at first with eager anticipation, later with dread; how slowly time had passed after that tender little valentine note, and how one day some of her own letters came back to her, marked unclaimed. And then she thought of the time, several years later, when her mother had died and when she felt for the first time the old grief of utter loneliness and misery, and the desolation of those months came over her again, in one great sickening wave that made her shake from head to foot; she recalled the days that followed, full of visits from kind and condoling neighbors, who gradually let her alone when they saw how much she desired it; the nights, full of grief and unsatisfied longing, when she gave way unrestrainedly to the sorrow which was pent up during the day. But--and Miss Hicks straightened up with a proud little smile, though her lips still trembled--at all events she had remained faithful to her promise; though doubts had often assailed her, she had kept the tryst bravely, and she comforted herself often by thinking, when she felt especially tired and alone, that if Dan were living, he would surely find his way back to her some day, and if he were dead she had a childish little feeling of relief that he was watching over her and protecting her all the time.