“Well,” said Lawler, gently; “he need not know.  If you are afraid to face public opinion, to show by your actions that you have nothing to be ashamed of, I’ll take you to the Circle L, just as soon as we can get through.  We’ll time ourselves to get there at night.  No one need know, and you can tell Warden that you were caught in the storm and drifted to the Circle L, where you stayed with my mother.  I can come back here and no one will ever know the difference.”

“I don’t want to see your mother!” she sneered.  “I’d be afraid she would be something like you!  Ugh!  I hate you!”

“There is only one other way,” smiled Lawler.  “I know Keller, the owner of the Willets Hotel, very intimately.  I can take you there, at night—­after the storm breaks.  No one need know.  You can say you were at the hotel all the time.  And Keller will support your word.”

“I presume I shall have to go to Willets—­since I have to lie!” she said, wrathfully.

“Yes,” said Lawler incisively; “it takes courage to be truthful, Miss Wharton.  But if a person always tells the truth——­”

“Shut up!” she said savagely; “you make me sick!” She glared malignantly at him.  “Ugh, I positively loathe you!  I must have been crazy when I thought I saw something in you!” She paused for an instant to get her breath, and then she resumed, vindictively: 

“I hope they arrest you for killing those two men—­Link and Givens.  I hope they hang you.  And they will hang you, because you can’t prove you acted in self-defense.  You’ll be sorry you didn’t marry me when you realize that I might have saved you by telling the truth about the fight!”

“Well,” he said; “you can’t testify without admitting you were here, you know.”

“And I will never tell!” she declared; “I will never admit it!” she added, exultingly.  “You’ll change your mind about marrying me—­you’ll have to, to save your neck!”

Lawler shook his head negatively.

“You wouldn’t marry me to save your life?” asked the girl, incredulously.

“Not to save my life, Miss Wharton.”

“Well,” she said slowly; “you’re a damned fool!”

Lawler smiled and turned away.  He heard Della moving about in the cabin, but he did not look around.

But later, after there had been a deep silence for a time, he ventured a backward glance.  During the day he had kept the dividing blanket rolled up out of the way, fastening it with two loops that he had suspended from the ceiling.  The blanket was now down—­it was the first time Della had touched it.

Lawler smiled, pulled a chair over near the fireplace, rolled a cigarette, and puffed slowly at it, reflecting that life in the cabin would now be more monotonous than ever.

Della did not get out of her bunk during the day.  She ate nothing, nor did she reply to Lawler when he invited her to partake of the food he had prepared.

Late that afternoon Lawler noted a glow of light coming through the north window.  He went to the door, opened it and looked out.  The snow had ceased and the wind had gone down.  Far over in the west a cold sun, hanging its rim on a mountain peak, bathed the world with a shimmering, glittering, blinding light.