Jane covered her ears and ran to her own room, and there like caged lioness she paced to and fro till the coming of little Fay reversed her dark thoughts.

The following day, a warm and muggy one threatening rain awhile Jane was resting in the court, a horseman clattered through he grove and up to the hitching-rack.  He leaped off and approached Jane with the manner of a man determined to execute difficult mission, yet fearful of its reception.  In the gaunt, wiry figure and the lean, brown face Jane recognized one of her Mormon riders, Blake.  It was he of whom Judkins had long since spoken.  Of all the riders ever in her employ Blake owed her the most, and as he stepped before her, removing his hat and making manly efforts to subdue his emotion, he showed that he remembered.

“Miss Withersteen, mother’s dead,” he said.

“Oh—­Blake!” exclaimed Jane, and she could say no more.

“She died free from pain in the end, and she’s buried—­resting at last, thank God!...I’ve come to ride for you again, if you’ll have me.  Don’t think I mentioned mother to get your sympathy.  When she was living and your riders quit, I had to also.  I was afraid of what might be done—­said to her....Miss Withersteen, we can’t talk of—­of what’s going on now—­”

“Blake, do you know?”

“I know a great deal.  You understand, my lips are shut.  But without explanation or excuse I offer my services.  I’m a Mormon—­I hope a good one.  But—­there are some things!...It’s no use, Miss Withersteen, I can’t say any more—­what I’d like to.  But will you take me back?”

“Blake!...You know what it means?”

“I don’t care.  I’m sick of—­of—­I’ll show you a Mormon who’ll be true to you!”

“But, Blake—­how terribly you might suffer for that!”

“Maybe.  Aren’t you suffering now?”

“God knows indeed I am!”

“Miss Withersteen, it’s a liberty on my part to speak so, but I know you pretty well—­know you’ll never give in.  I wouldn’t if I were you.  And I—­I must—­Something makes me tell you the worst is yet to come.  That’s all.  I absolutely can’t say more.  Will you take me back—­let me ride for you—­show everybody what I mean?”

“Blake, it makes me happy to hear you.  How my riders hurt me when they quit!” Jane felt the hot tears well to her eyes and splash down upon her hands.  “I thought so much of them—­tried so hard to be good to them.  And not one was true.  You’ve made it easy to forgive.  Perhaps many of them really feel as you do, but dare not return to me.  Still, Blake, I hesitate to take you back.  Yet I want you so much.”

“Do it, then.  If you’re going to make your life a lesson to Mormon women, let me make mine a lesson to the men.  Right is right.  I believe in you, and here’s my life to prove it.”

“You hint it may mean your life!” said Jane, breathless and low.

“We won’t speak of that.  I want to come back.  I want to do what every rider aches in his secret heart to do for you....Miss Withersteen, I hoped it’d not be necessary to tell you that my mother on her deathbed told me to have courage.  She knew how the thing galled me—­she told me to come back....Will you take me?”