golden-throated dove, I cannot
join in your sweet laughter, for I have a boding heart, this day. I have
enemies. They will use my past record. The courts are new, and judgments
swift and cold. If they should send me again to the penitentiary I--"

"Dearest I should know you to be innocent, and I should wait for you."

He kissed her tenderly on cheeks, and eyes, and mouth. He took her hands
from his shoulders, slipping off the little silken mitts and putting
them in an inner pocket, and kissed the soft, pink palms.

"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