“How did you know I was coming to-day?” she queried suddenly.

“How did you know I would be at the train to meet you?” echoed a voice.

The girl did not answer, did not pursue the subject.

“Tell me of Aunt Mary, please,” she digressed.  “I felt somehow when you wrote as if I—­I—­” A swiftly gathered shower called a halt.  Tear drops, ever so near, stood in her eyes.  “Please tell me,” she completed.

The man told her.  It did not take long.  As of her prosaic life, so there was little to record of the death of Mary Landor.  “It was best that you were away,” he ended.  “It was best for her that she went when she did.”

“You think so, How, honestly?” No affectation in that anxious query.  “You think I didn’t do wrong in leaving as I did?”

“No, you did no wrong, Bess.”  A pause.  “You could not.”

A moment the girl sat looking at him; in wonder and something more.

“I believe you knew all the time Aunt Mary would—­go while I was away,” she said suddenly, tensely.  “I believe you helped me away on purpose.”

No answer.

“Tell me, How.  I want to know.”

“I thought so, Bess,” simply.

For a long time the girl sat so; silent, marvelling.  A new understanding of this solitary human stole over her, an appreciation that drowned the sadness of a moment ago.  “How you must care for me,” she voiced almost unconsciously.  “How you must care for me!”

She did not expect an answer.  She was not disappointed.  Again a silence fell; a silence of which she was unconscious, for she was thinking.  Minutes passed.  In the barn the bronchos were passively waiting.  At the parsonage the young minister still sat scowling in his study.  No time had been set for the visit he expected.  There was no apparent reason why he should not have gone about his work; but for some reason he could not.  Angry with himself, he thrust the new half eagle into his pocket and, placing the offending licence beneath a pile of papers, he walked over to the window and stood staring out into the sunshine.

Within the tiny room at the hotel the gaze of the girl shifted, dropped to her feet.  Despite an effort her face tinged slowly red.

“Did you think,” she queried abruptly, “when you expected me to-day that I would come alone?”

The Indian showed no surprise.

“Yes, Bess,” he answered.  “I knew you would be alone.”

“Why, How?” The question was just audible.

“Because I trusted you, Bess.”

Silence again.  Surreptitiously, swiftly, the girl’s brown eyes glanced up; but he was not looking at her, and again her glance fell.  A longer pause followed, a pause wherein the girl could not have spoken if she would.  A great preventing lump was in her throat, an obstacle that precluded speech.  Many things had happened in the short time since she had last been with this man, some things of which she was not proud; and beside such a trust as this Bess Landor was speechless.  Without volition upon her part, the cup of life had been placed to her lips and, likewise without knowledge of what it contained, she had tasted.  The memory of that draught was with her now.  Under its influence she spoke.