know I'm
rather inclined to that sort of thing. But as long as my folly don't
affect others, I can stand it."

"But it may affect others--and THEY may not think of it as folly--" She
stopped short, confused by his brightening color and eyes. "I mean--Oh,
Mr. Kearney, I want you to be frank with me. I know nothing of business,
but I know there has been trouble about the mine at Devil's Ford. Tell
me honestly, has my father anything to do with it? If I thought that
through any imprudence of his, you had suffered--if I believed that
you could trace any misfortune of yours to him--to US--I should never
forgive myself"--she stopped and flashed a single look at him--"I should
never forgive YOU for abandoning us."

The look of pain which had at first shown itself in his face, which
never concealed anything, passed, and a quick smile followed her
feminine anticlimax.

"Miss Carr," he said, with boyish eagerness, "if any man suggested to me
that your father wasn't the brightest and best of his kind--too wise and
clever for the fools about him to understand--I'd--I'd shoot him."

Confused by his ready and gracious disclaimer of what she had NOT
intended to say, there was nothing left for her but to rush upon
what she really intended to say, with what she felt was shameful
precipitation.

"One word more, Mr. Kearney," she began, looking down, but feeling the
color come to her face as she spoke. "When you spoke to me the day you
left, you must have thought me hard and cruel. When I tell you that I
thought you were alluding to Jessie and some feeling you had for her--"

"For Jessie!" echoed George.

"You will understand that--that--"

"That what?" said George, drawing nearer to her.

"That I was only speaking as she might have spoken had you talked to her
of me," added Christie hurriedly, slightly backing her horse away from
him.

But this was not so easy, as George was the better rider, and by an
imperceptible movement of his wrist and foot had glued his horse to her
side. "He will go now," she had thought, but he didn't.

"We must ride on," she suggested faintly.

"No," he said with a sudden dropping of his boyish manner and a slight
lifting of his head. "We must ride together no further, Miss Carr. I
must go back to the work I am hired to do, and you must go on with
your party, whom I hear coming. But when we part here you must bid me
good-by--not as Jessie's sister--but as Christie--the one--the only
woman that