“I know it,” cried Constance, gayly, the color coming to her cheeks; “but never mind, the baby’s all right now.”

“Well, you’ve got to come over to our house and get fixed up.  Was you goin’ out on the stage?  You stay here for a day or so and watch that child; we’d like it mighty well if you would.”

It was a flag of truce from Heart’s Desire.  Nevertheless, Constance seemed to hesitate.  Ah! wily Constance.  A great many things might happen which had not yet happened, but which ought to happen.  And in all that group Dan Anderson was nowhere to be seen.  Perhaps after a time he might come!

Constance hesitated just long enough.  The dignity of Bill Godfrey had to be sustained.  His stagecoach had not started on the appointed and stipulated time any day these many months; yet for that stage, ready equipped for its journey, to stand waiting idly upon the convenience of any mortal after the “mails” had been brought out from the post-office and placed safely in the boot, was mortal affront to any stage-driver’s reputation.  Bill Godfrey again looked solemnly at his watch and gathered up the reins.  “All aboard!” he cried.  “Git up!” and so swung a wide circle and headed down the street to the hotel.  Presently he departed.  He carried a solitary passenger.  Constance and her father were still prisoners, or guests, in Heart’s Desire for an indefinite time!  And in an indefinite time many things may occur.

In his house across the arroyo Dan Anderson endured the silence and loneliness as long as he could, turning over and over again in his mind the old questions to which he had found no answer.  Most of all, one question was insistent.  Had he been just to her, to Constance, in allowing himself to accept her alleged conduct as a motive for his own actual conduct?  He had taken for granted much—­all—­and upon what manner of testimony?  The babblings of a half-witted herder!  He had asked the men of Heart’s Desire to hear both sides of his own case.  The men of Heart’s Desire had heard both sides of the railroad’s case.  But he had condemned without trial the woman whom he loved—­her—­Constance!  It was impossible, unbelievable of any man.

When the horror of this thought broke upon him fully, Dan Anderson sprang up, caught his hat, and started fast as he might for the hotel.  He crossed the arroyo below the post-office, and so did not know, at the time, of the peril and rescue of Arabella.  Nor did he know that all of Heart’s Desire was penitent regarding her and her father; nor that both were to remain for yet a little time.

Dan Anderson approached the stone hotel in time to watch the stage depart, himself unobserved.  Then he stepped farther toward the hotel door.  He met the Littlest Girl just emerging from the building, whither she had gone upon the same errand as his own.

“She ain’t here, Mr. Anderson,” explained the Littlest Girl; “her and her pa has just went to the post-office.”