“Listen!  He came—­”

“Fay, don’t—­tell me,” interrupted Shefford.

“I will tell you,” she said.

Did the instinct of love teach her how to mitigate his pain?  Shefford felt that, as he felt the new-born strength in her.

“Listen,” she went on.  “He came when I was undressing for bed.  I heard the horse.  He knocked on the door.  Something terrible happened to me then.  I felt sick and my head wasn’t clear.  I remember next—­ his being in the room—­the lamp was out—­I couldn’t see very well.  He thought I was sick and he gave me a drink and let the air blow in on me through the window.  I remember I lay back in the chair and I thought.  And I listened.  When would you come?  I didn’t feel that you could leave me there alone with him.  For his coming was different this time.  That pain like a blade in my side! . . .  When it came I was not the same.  I loved you.  I understood then.  I belonged to you.  I couldn’t let him touch me.  I had never been his wife.  When I realized this—­that he was there, that you might suffer for it—­I cried right out.

“He thought I was sick.  He worked over me.  He gave me medicine.  And then he prayed.  I saw him, in the dark, on his knees, praying for me.  That seemed strange.  Yet he was kind, so kind that I begged him to let me go.  I was not a Mormon.  I couldn’t marry him.  I begged him to let me go.

“Then he thought I had been deceiving him.  He fell into a fury.  He talked for a long time.  He called upon God to visit my sins upon me.  He tried to make me pray.  But I wouldn’t.  And then I fought him.  I’d have screamed for you had he not smothered me.  I got weak. . . .  And you never came.  I know I thought you would come.  But you didn’t.  Then I—­I gave out.  And after—­some time—­I must have fainted.”

“Fay!  For Heaven’s sake, how could I come to you?” burst out Shefford, hoarse and white with remorse, passion, pain.

“If I’m any man’s wife I’m yours.  It’s a thing you feel, isn’t it?  I know that now. . . .  But I want to know what to do?”

“Fay!” he cried, huskily.

“I’m sick of it all.  If it weren’t for you I’d climb the wall and throw myself off.  That would be easy for me.  I’d love to die that way.  All my life I’ve been high up on the walls.  To fall would be nothing!”

“Oh, you mustn’t talk like that!”

“Do you love me?” she asked, with a low and deathless sweetness.

“Love you?  With all my heart!  Nothing can change that!”

“Do you want me—­as you used to want the Fay Larkin lost in Surprise Valley?  Do you love me that way?  I understand things better than before, but still—­not all.  I am Fay Larkin.  I think I must have dreamed of you all my life.  I was glad when you came here.  I’ve been happy lately.  I forgot—­till last night.  Maybe it needed that to make me see I’ve loved you all the time. . . .  And I fought him like a wildcat! . . .  Tell me the truth.  I feel I’m yours.  Is that true?  If I’m not—­I’ll not live another hour.  Something holds me up.  I am the same. . . .  Do you want me?”