she swayed toward Venters.
"Bess, I'll not go again," he said, catching her.

She leaned against him, and her body was limp and vibrated to a
long, wavering tremble. Her face was upturned to his. Woman's

face, woman's eyes, woman's lips--all acutely and blindly and
sweetly and terriblytruthful in their betrayal! But as her fear

was instinctive" target="_blank" title="a.本能的，天性的">instinctive, so was her clinging to this one and only
friend.

Venters gently put her from him and steadied her upon her feet;
and all the while his blood raced wild, and a thrilling tingle

unsteadied his nerve, and something--that he had seen and felt in
her--that he could not understand--seemed very close to him, warm

and rich as a fragrantbreath, sweet as nothing had ever before
been sweet to him.

With all his will Venters strove for calmness and thought and
judgment unbiased by pity, and reality unswayed by sentiment.

Bess's eyes were still fixed upon him with all her soul bright in
that wistful light. Swiftly, resolutely he put out of mind all of

her life except what had been spent with him. He scorned himself
for the intelligence that made him still doubt. He meant to judge

her as she had judged him. He was face to face with the
inevitableness of life itself. He saw destiny in the dark,

straight path of her wonderful eyes. Here was the simplicity, the
sweetness of a girl contending with new and strange and

enthralling emotions here the living truth of innocence; here the
blind terror of a woman confronted with the thought of death to

her savior and protector. All this Venters saw, but, besides,
there was in Bess's eyes a slow-dawning consciousness that seemed

about to break out in glorious radiance.
"Bess, are you thinking?" he asked.

"Yes--oh yes!"
"Do you realize we are here alone--man and woman?"

"Yes."
"Have you thought that we may make our way out to civilization,

or we may have to stay here--alone--hidden from the world all our
lives?"

"I never thought--till now."
"Well, what's your choice--to go--or to stay here--alone with

me?"
"Stay!" New-born thought of self, ringing vibrantly in her voice,

gave her answer singular power.
Venters trembled, and then swiftly turned his gaze from her

face--from her eyes. He knew what she had only half divined--that
she loved him.

CHAPTER XI. FAITH AND UNFAITH
At Jane Withersteen's home the promise made to Mrs. Larkin to

care for little Fay had begun to be fulfilled. Like a gleam of
sunlight through the cottonwoods was the coming of the child to

the gloomy house of Withersteen. The big, silent halls echoed
with childishlaughter. In the shady court, where Jane spent many

of the hot July days, Fay's tiny feet pattered over the stone
flags and splashed in the amber stream. She prattled incessantly.

What difference, Jane thought, a child made in her home! It had
never been a real home, she discovered. Even the tidiness and

neatness she had so observed, and upon which she had insisted to
her women, became, in the light of Fay's smile, habits that now

lost their importance. Fay littered the court with Jane's books
and papers, and other toys her fancy improvised, and many a

strange craft went floating down the little brook.
And it was owing to Fay's presence that Jane Withersteen came to

see more of Lassiter. The rider had for the most part kept to the
sage. He rode for her, but he did not seek her except on

business; and Jane had to acknowledge in pique that her overtures
had been made in vain. Fay, however, captured Lassiter the moment

he first laid eyes on her.
Jane was present at the meeting, and there was something about it

which dimmed her sight and softened her toward this foe of her
people. The rider had clanked into the court, a tired yet wary

man, always looking for the attack upon him that was inevitable
and might come from any quarter; and he had walked right upon

little Fay. The child had been beautiful even in her rags and
amid the surroundings of the hovel in the sage, but now, in a

pretty white dress, with her shining curls brushed and her face
clean and rosy, she was lovely. She left her play and looked up

at Lassiter.
If there was not an instinct for all three of them in that

meeting, an unreasoning tendency toward a closer intimacy, then
Jane Withersteen believed she had been subject to a queer fancy.

She imagined any child would have feared Lassiter. And Fay Larkin
had been a lonely, a solitary elf of the sage, not at all an

ordinary child, and exquisitely shy with strangers. She watched
Lassiter with great, round, grave eyes, but showed no fear. The

rider gave Jane a favorable report of cattle and horses; and as
he took the seat to which she invited him, little Fay edged as

much as half an inch nearer. Jane replied to his look of inquiry
and told Fay's story. The rider's gray, earnest gaze troubled

her. Then he turned to Fay and smiled in a way that made Jane
doubt her sense of the true relation of things. How could

Lassiter smile so at a child when he had made so many children
fatherless? But he did smile, and to the gentleness she had seen

a few times he added something that was infinitely sad and sweet.
Jane's intuition told her that Lassiter had never been a father,

but if life ever so blessed him he would be a good one. Fay,
also, must have found that smile singularly winning. For she

edged closer and closer, and then, by way of feminine
capitulation, went to Jane, from whose side she bent a beautiful

glance upon the rider.
Lassiter only smiled at her.

Jane watched them, and realized that now was the moment she
should seize, if she was ever to win this man from his hatred.

But the step was not easy to take. The more she saw of Lassiter
the more she respected him, and the greater her respect the

harder it became to lend herself to mere coquetry. Yet as she
thought of her great motive, of Tull, and of that other whose

name she had schooled herself never to think of in connection
with Milly Erne's avenger, she suddenly found she had no choice.

And her creed gave her boldness far beyond the limit to which
vanity would have led her.

"Lassiter, I see so little of you now," she said, and was
conscious of heat in her cheeks.

"I've been riding hard," he replied.
"But you can't live in the saddle. You come in sometimes. Won't

you come here to see me--oftener?"
"Is that an order?"

"Nonsense! I simply ask you to come to see me when you find
time."

"Why?"
The query once heard was not so embarrassing to Jane as she might

have imagined. Moreover, it established in her mind a fact that
there existed actually other than selfish reasons for her wanting

to see him. And as she had been bold, so she determined to be
both honest and brave.

"I've reasons--only one of which I need mention," she answered.
"If it's possible I want to change you toward my people. And on

the moment I can conceive of little I wouldn't do to gain that