“Why—­yes—­it would,” replied Shefford, awkwardly.  “I wish I didn’t have my work.”

“Joe, will you climb with me some day?”

“I should smile I will,” declared Joe.

“But I can run right up the walls.”

“I reckon.  Mary, it wouldn’t surprise me to see you fly.”

“Do you mean I’m like a canyon swallow or an angel?”

Then, as Joe stared speechlessly, she said good-by and, taking up the bucket, went on with her swift, graceful step.

“She’s perked up,” said the Mormon, staring after her.  “Never heard her say more ’n yes or no till now.”

“She did seem—­bright,” replied Shefford.

He was stunned.  What had happened to her?  To-day this girl had not been Mary, the sealed wife, or the Sago Lily, alien among Mormon women.  Then it flashed upon him—­she was Fay Larkin.  She who had regarded herself as dead had come back to life.  In one short night what had transformed her—­what had taken place in her heart?  Shefford dared not accept, nor allow lodgment in his mind, a thrilling idea that he had made her forget her misery.

“Shefford, did you ever see her like that?” asked Joe.

“Never.”

“Haven’t you—­something to do with it?”

“Maybe I have.  I—­I hope so.”

“Reckon you’ve seen how she’s faded—­since the trial?”

“No,” replied Shefford, swiftly.  “But I’ve not seen her face in daylight since then.”

“Well, take my hunch,” said Joe, soberly.  “She’s begun to fade like the canyon lily when it’s broken.  And she’s going to die unless—­”

“Why man!” ejaculated Shefford.  “Didn’t you see—­”

“Sure I see,” interrupted the Mormon.  “I see a lot you don’t.  She’s so white you can look through her.  She’s grown thin, all in a week.  She doesn’t eat.  Oh, I know, because I’ve made it my business to find out.  It’s no news to the women.  But they’d like to see her die.  And she will die unless—­”

“My God!” exclaimed Shefford, huskily.  “I never noticed—­I never thought. . . .  Joe, hasn’t she any friends?”

“Sure.  You and Ruth—­and me.  Maybe Nas Ta Bega, too.  He watches her a good deal.”

“We can do so little, when she needs so much.”

“Nobody can help her, unless it’s you,” went on the Mormon.  “That’s plain talk.  She seemed different this morning.  Why, she was alive—­ she talked—­she smiled. . . .  Shefford, if you cheer her up I’ll go to hell for you!”

The big Mormon, on his knees, with his hands in a pan of dough, and his shirt all covered with flour, presented an incongruous figure of a man actuated by pathos and passion.  Yet the contrast made his emotion all the simpler and stronger.  Shefford grew closer to Joe in that moment.

“Why do you think I can cheer her, help her?” queried Shefford.

“I don’t know.  But she’s different with you.  It’s not that you’re a Gentile, though, for all the women are crazy about you.  You talk to her.  You have power over her, Shefford.  I feel that.  She’s only a kid.”