distinct.  And Wade sustained a terrible shock....  Then, as one in a dream, as in a blur of strained peering into a maze, he saw the face of his sweetheart, his wife, the Lucy of his early manhood.  It moved him out of the past.  Closer!  Pang on pang quivered in his heart.  Was this only a nightmare?  Or had he at last gone mad!  This girl raised her head.  She was looking—­she saw him.  Terror mounted upon Wade’s consciousness.

“That’s Lucy’s face!” he gasped.  “So help—­me, God!...  It’s for this—­I wandered here!  She’s my flesh an’ blood—­my Lucy’s child—­my own!”

Fear and presentiment and blank amaze and stricken consciousness left him in the lightning-flash of divination that was recognition as well.  A shuddering cataclysm enveloped him, a passion so stupendous that it almost brought oblivion.

The three hounds leaped up with barks and wagging tails.  They welcomed this visitor.  Kane lost still more of his canine aloofness.

Wade’s breast heaved.  The blue sky, the gray hills, the green willows, all blurred in his sight, that seemed to hold clear only the face floating closer.

“I’m Columbine Belllounds,” said a voice.

It stilled the storm in Wade.  It was real.  It was a voice of twenty years ago.  The burden on his breast lifted.  Then flashed the spirit, the old self-control of a man whose life had held many terrible moments.

“Mornin’, miss.  I’m glad to meet you,” he replied, and there was no break, no tone unnatural in his greeting.

So they gazed at each other, she with that instinctive look peculiar to women in its intuitive powers, but common to all persons who had lived far from crowds and to whom a new-comer was an event.  Wade’s gaze, intense and all-embracing, found that face now closer in resemblance to the imagined Lucy’s—­a pretty face, rather than beautiful, but strong and sweet—­its striking qualities being a colorless fairness of skin that yet held a rose and golden tint, and the eyes of a rare and exquisite shade of blue.

“Oh!  Are you feeling ill?” she asked.  “You look so—­so pale.”

“No.  I’m only tuckered out,” replied Wade, easily, as he wiped the clammy drops from his brow.  “It was a long ride to get here.”

“I’m the lady of the house,” she said, with a smile.  “I’m glad to welcome you to White Slides, and hope you’ll like it.”

“Well, Miss Columbine, I reckon I will,” he replied, returning the smile.  “Now if I was younger I’d like it powerful much.”

She laughed at that.  “Men are all alike, young or old.”

“Don’t ever think so,” said Wade, earnestly.

“No?  I guess you’re right about that.  I’ve fetched you up some things for your cabin.  May I peep in?”

“Come in,” replied Wade, rising.  “You must excuse my manners.  It’s long indeed since I had a lady caller.”

She went in, and Wade, standing on the threshold, saw her survey the room with a woman’s sweeping glance.