It struck both Virginia and Norton as a shade odd that Patten should be still in Las Estrellas when they rode out of it long after midnight.  They saw him standing in the doorway of the one still lighted building of the village as they galloped past.  It was the Three Star saloon.  Patten’s horse was tied in front of it.  Since Patten neither drank nor played at dice or cards here might have been matter to ponder on.  But in neither mind was there place now for any interest other than that which again held them silent and constrained.

Las Estrellas lost behind them, they drew their horses down into a rocking trot, then to a slow walk.  Virginia rode with her head up, her eyes upon the field of stars.  Her face, as Norton kept close to her side, looked very white in the starlight.  He would have given much to have seen her eyes when a little later he began to talk.  And she was conscious of a kindred wish.

“Look yonder,” she said.  “The late moon is coming up.  There will be a little more light then and. . . .  And I want to look at you, Rod Norton, while we thresh it out.”

The thin curved sliver of silver thrusting up over the edge of the world in the east, ghostly and pale, added little to the throbbing gleam of the stars; but the waiting for it had put Las Estrellas a mile behind them, had set them alone together out in the heart of the silences, had given them that last excuse to be had to set back an evil moment.  Virginia, with a sigh, brought her eyes down from the glitter of the wide heavens and sought Norton’s.

“I am afraid,” she said listlessly, “that there is no way out for us, Rod Norton.”

“There is a way!” he began quickly

“There is no way unless you do what I say.  If you would only give me your word to take the stage to-morrow, to go to a competent surgeon, to submit to the operation.  If you would only give me your word. . . .”

“I give you my word,” he said sharply, “that that is just the thing which I will never do.  Virginia, breathe deep, fill your lungs with the wonder of the night; realize what it means to live; think what it means to die!  You say that I am not afraid of death; well, maybe not if it comes in a guise I have grown up to be familiar with.  But to lie as I saw Tony Garcia lying just now, powerless, unconscious, without will or knowledge of what was coming to me, and to let a man cut into me . . .  I’d rather die, I think, standing upon my two feet and fighting it out with a gun!  You would go on and tell me that the chances would be highly in favor of my recovery; and yet you would admit that the danger would be grave.”

“Then you are afraid, after all?  That is it?  That holds you back?” She found it hard to believe that he was telling her his true emotion.

“I am merely measuring the chances,” he said steadily.  “I am satisfied with life as I find it; I do not believe that there is anything wrong with me; I see at least the possibility of death and nothing to be gained by submitting to an operation.”