“Ah, Lady-Bird, if I should not return you’ll remember me?”

“Always.”

“My own pure love!  No breath of shame shall ever sully your fair name through me.”

“Right well I know that, Richard.  God bless you.  I will pray for you every hour.”

At evening George Taylor brought her a note from Dick.

“Oh, George,” she wailed, “they have sentenced him?”

“Two years in prison.”

“But he was innocent!”

“Yes, and some day it will be proven.”  He looked at her strangely, “I must tell you — Dick has broken jail and fled north to Shasta county, where he will begin life anew.  Then, if you still wish it, he will come to you.”

* * * * *

After four years the Singer-Lady returned for a concert at the little Opera House in Rattlesnake.  She went to her old quarters at the Widow Miller’s, on the edge of town.

“Eh, Dearie,” cried the good woman, “what have they been doing to ye, so to dim your bright youth, and to bring the sad lines to your mouth?”

“Mrs. Miller, where is he?”

“Ah — so that’s the answer.”  The girl’s eyes filled with tears.

“Four years — and for the last two, no word.  I must find George Taylor.  Perhaps he — "

“Dearie, George Taylor is with Dick, and the Skinners and Cherokee Bob and Lame Jim Driscoll.  They say, too, that at times Dick rides with Tom Bell’s gang.”

“Ah, he tried with all a strong man’s power to win a new name for himself — and for you — but Fate was too strong.  His false record followed him up and down the state from every idle throat, casting a blight over all he sought to, do.  Every sheriff hounded him on.  Each unproven crime was laid at his door.”

“But why did he not come to me?  Oh, he had my whole heart, and he knew it.”

“He did come to you two years ago, to ask if you would return to Canada with him, hoping that it was too far for tales from California to travel.  As soon as he reached San Francisco he was recognized by one of the authorities and ‘shown up’ by the Vigilante Committee in the Plaza, as they put up all dangerous characters for the police and the people to see.

“And whilst he was there you passed, walking with another man, and looked him in the eyes and knew him not.  ’Twas that which broke his heart and made him the reckless and brilliant devil that he is today.”

“But — but,” cried the Singer-Lady, recovering from the daze these words had placed upon her, “I did not pass.  Oh, I should have fallen at his feet — lost to all maidenly reserve — there before the people.  It must have been my sister, who had but lately come from Boston and so would not know him,” and she broke into uncontrollable weeping.

“There, child, dry your tears.  Try to be brave.  You care for him still?”

“Always.  I have never ceased to pray for him.  If I cannot become his, I shall go lonely to my grave.  Tell me everything, kind Mrs. Miller.”