“Don’t say that, Oh, don’t say that,” she hastened to say with a great tenderness in her voice.  “S’pose you was only a road agent an’ I was a saloon keeper.  We both came out o’ nothin’ an’ we met, but through lovin’ we’re goin’ to reach things now—­that’s us.  We had to be lifted up like this to be saved.”

Johnson tried to speak, but the words would not come.  It was, therefore, with a feeling of relief that, presently, he heard Nick at the door, saying, “It’s all clear now.”

Johnson wheeled round, but Nick had flown.  Turning once more to the Girl, he said with trembling lips: 

“Good-bye!”

The Girl’s face wore a puzzled look, and she told him that he acted as if they were never going to meet again.

“An’ we are, we are, ain’t we?” she questioned eagerly.

A faint little smile hovered about the corners of the road agent’s mouth when presently he answered: 

“Why, surely we are . . .”

His words cleared her face instantly.

“I want you to think o’ me here jest waitin’,” she said.  “You was the first—­there’ll never be anyone but you.  Why, you’re the man I’d want sittin’ across the table if there was a little kid like I was playin’ under it.  I can’t say no more ’n that.  Only you—­you will—­you must get through safe an’ come back—­an’ well, think o’ me here jest waitin’, jest waitin’, waitin’ . . .”

At these words a tightness gripped the man’s throat, and in the silence that followed the tears ran steadily down his cheeks.

“Oh, Girl, Girl,” at last he said, “that first night I went to your cabin I saw you kneeling, praying.  Say that in your heart again for me now.  Perhaps I believe it—­perhaps I don’t . . .  I hope I do—­I want to—­but say it, say it, Girl, just for the luck of it—­say it . . .”

Quickly the Girl crossed herself, and while she sent a silent prayer to Heaven Johnson knelt at her knees, his head bowed low.

“God bless you,” he murmured when the prayer was finished and arose to his feet; then bending over her hand he touched it softly with his lips.

“Good-bye!” he said chokingly and started for the door.

“Good-bye!” came slowly in return, her face no less moist than his.  Presently she murmured like one in a dream:  “Dick, Dick!”

The man hastened his steps and did not turn.  At the door, however, he burst out in an agony of despair:  “Girl!  Girl . . .!”

But when the Girl looked up he had reached the open.  She listened a moment to the retreating steps, then raising her tear-stained face above her arms, she sobbed out:  “He’s gone—­he’s gone—­he’s gone . . .!” She started in pursuit of him, but half-way across the room she fell into Nick’s arms, crying out: 

“He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone!  Dick!  Dick!  Dick . . .!”

Terribly affected at the sight of the Girl’s sorrow, the little barkeeper did his best to soothe her, now patting her little blonde head as it rested upon his arm, now murmuring words of loving tenderness.