"

"Yes, I know."

Much of the softness which Frances had for the highland bonnet was in
her voice as she replied, and the little bonnet itself was being
nestled against her cheek, as a mother cuddles a baby's hand.

"The best that's in me goes out to that man," said Nola solemnly--and
truthfully, Frances knew--"but I wouldn't take him from you now,
Frances, even if I could. I don't want to care for him, I don't want
to think of him. I just want to think of poor father lying out there
under the ground."

"It's best for you to think of him."

"Only a day ago he was alive and warm, like you and me, and now he's
dead! Mother never will want to leave this place again now, and I
don't feel like I want to either. I just want to lie down and die--oh,
I just want to die!"

Pity for herself brought Nola's tears gushing again, and her choking
sobs into her throat. Her voice was hoarse from her lamentations;
there seemed to be only sorrow for her in every theme. Frances held
her shivering slim body in her supporting arm, and Nola's face bent
down upon her shoulder. It seemed that her renunciation was complete,
her regeneration undeniable. But Frances knew that a great flood of
tears was required to put out the fire of passion in a woman's heart.
One spark, one little spark, might live through the deluge to spring
into the heat of the past under the breath of memory.

Again the heaving breast grew calm, and the tear-wet face was lifted
to shake back the fallen hair.

"This has emptied everything out for me," Nola sighed. "I'm going to
be serious in everything, with everybody, after this. Do you suppose
Mrs. Mathews would let me help her over at the mission--if I went to
her meek and humble and asked her?"

"If she saw that it would help _you_, she would, Nola."

"Just think how lonesome it will be here when the post's abandoned and
everybody but the Indians gone! You'll be away--maybe long before
that--and I'll not see anybody but Indians and cowboys from year's
beginning to year's end. Oh, it will be so dreary and lonesome here!"

"There's work up the river in the homesteaders' settlement, Nola;
there's suffering to be relieved, and bereaved hearts to be comforted.
There's your work, it seems to me, for you and those nearest to you
are to blame for the desolation of those poor homes, excuse it as
charitably as we may."

Frances felt a shudder run through the girl's body as her arm clasped
the pliant waist.

"Why,