and she had made no denial.
His recognition of it colored his leave-taking.

"All happiness for you, Nell. The game ought to be worth playing with
you--and with him. You both live so hard." He found it difficult to say
as little, there was such gratitude and such misery in her eyes as they
fell before his, trying to veil at least a part of what she felt. But he
left her so.

She lay a long time trying to realize Ewing in this new light. She had
never read anything in his eyes but the fullest devotion, and yet for
months he had believed this sinister thing. She caught again his young,
sorry, protesting look, and the poignancy of it brought her tears.
There came into the tenderness she had felt for him something of awe for
his unquestioning allegiance, a thing that had not wavered under the
worst he could believe. Then the monstrous absurdity of what he did
believe came upon her once more and she laughed; but her tears still
fell. And so, with laughter and tears, she set him up anew in her heart,
her beloved child and her terrible master. She was glad now that she
knew. It made him more to her. And the time would be so short.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE SUNSET TRAIL

Ewing had looked forward pleasantly to meeting Virginia Bartell again,
but it was a new Virginia who met him with a nod when he joined the
party on the evening of the start. She had eyes only for her sister, the
white, weak, phantom thing who smiled terribly as her brother half
carried her into the stateroom of their car. Through the days of the
journey he sought to cheer her, wistfully making jests about the flat
land and its people as they sped through the little wooden towns,
promising her a land that would be "busy every minute." But she would
only say, "I'll like your land when it makes sister well."

"It's bound to," he assured her. "Nobody dies there unless he gets
careless. Here, this is the way it happens. Here's Ben Crider's last
letter. You'll like Ben. Listen to this and see if it doesn't make you
hopeful." He opened the scrawled sheet and read:

"'Dear Kid, I thought it about time to write you a few lines. If you
seen the lake now you would want to of been here. Life and nature seems
very complete here. I heard Chet Lynch shot Elmer Watts. I been building
a haystacker for Pierce. Plenty deer sign around the lick. Lee Jennings
was killed by a bucker falling back on him. I can sell your saddle for
twenty-two dollars to Ben Lefferts. I put a