“Nell, I’m sorry.  I hate to hurt you.  But you’re wrong.  You can’t see things clearly.  This is your happiness I’m fighting for.  And it’s my life....Wait here, dear.  I won’t be long.”

Gale ran across the patio and disappeared.  Nell sank to the doorstep, and as she met the question in Belding’s eyes she shook her head mournfully.  They waited without speaking.  It seemed a long while before Gale returned.  Belding thrilled at sight of him.  There was more boy about him than Belding had ever seen.  Dick was coming swiftly, flushed, glowing, eager, erect, almost smiling.

“I told them.  I swore it was a lie, but I wanted them to decide as if it were true.  I didn’t have to waste a minute on Elsie.  She loves you, Nell.  The Governor is crazy about you.  I didn’t have to waste two minutes on him.  Mother used up the time.  She wanted to know all there was to tell.  She is proud, yes; but, Nell, I wish you could have seen how she took the—­the story about you.  Why, she never thought of me at all, until she had cried over you.  Nell, she loves you, too.  They all love you.  Oh, it’s so good to tell you.  I think mother realizes the part you have had in the—­what shall I call it?—­the regeneration of Richard Gale.  Doesn’t that sound fine?  Darling, mother not only consents, she wants you to be my wife.  Do you hear that?  And listen—­she had me in a corner and, of course, being my mother, she put on the screws.  She made me promise that we’d live in the East half the year.  That means Chicago, Cape May, New York—­you see, I’m not exactly the lost son any more.  Why, Nell, dear, you’ll have to learn who Dick Gale really is.  But I always want to be the ranger you helped me become, and ride Blanco Sol, and see a little of the desert.  Don’t let the idea of big cities frighten you.  Well always love the open places best.  Now, Nell, say you’ll forget this trouble.  I know it’ll come all right.  Say you’ll marry me soon....Why, dearest, you’re crying....Nell!”

“My—­heart—­is broken,” sobbed Nell, “for—­I—­I—­can’t marry you.”

The boyish brightness faded out of Gale’s face.  Here, Belding saw, was the stern reality arrayed against his dreams.

“That devil Radford Chase—­he’ll tell my secret,” panted Nell.  “He swore if you ever came back and married me he’d follow us all over the world to tell it.”

Belding saw Gale grow deathly white and suddenly stand stock-still.

“Chase threatened you, then?” asked Dick; and the forced naturalness of his voice struck Belding.

“Threatened me?  He made my life a nightmare,” replied Nell, in a rush of speech.  “At first I wondered how he was worrying mother sick.  But she wouldn’t tell me.  Then when she went away he began to hint things.  I hated him all the more.  But when he told me—­I was frightened, shamed.  Still I did not weaken.  He was pretty decent when he was sober.  But