he prospect through clouded eyes.

"You'll never go out of my house," she said in a low voice.

"Other spirits will come into it and fill it up."

A wish that anything might stop the slow advance to this roseate future
choked her. She sat with averted face wrestling with her sick
distaste, and heard him say:

"You don't know how happy you're going to be, my little Missy."

She could find no answer, and he went on: "You have everything for it,
health and youth and a pure heart and David for your mate."

She had to speak now and said with urgence, trying to encourage
herself, since no one else could do it for her,

"But that's all in the future, a long time from now."

"Not so very long. We ought to be in California in five or six weeks."

To have the dreaded reality suddenly brought so close, set at the limit
of a few short weeks, grimly waiting at a definite point in the
distance, made her repugnance break loose in alarmed words.

"Longer than that," she cried. "The desert's the hardest place, and
we'll go slow, very slow, there."

"You sound as if you wanted to go slow," he answered, his smile
indulgently quizzical, as completely shut away from her, in his man's
ignorance, as though no bond of love and blood held them together.

"No, no, of course not," she faltered. "But I'm not at all sure we'll
get through it so easily. I'm making allowance for delays. There are
always delays."

"Yes, there may be delays, but we'll hope to be one of the lucky trains
and get through on time."

She swallowed dryly, her heart gone down too far to be plucked up by
futile contradition [Transcriber's note: contradiction?]. He mused a
moment, seeking the best method of broaching a subject that had been
growing in his mind for the past week. Frankness seemed the most
simple, and he said:

"I've something to suggest to you. I've been thinking of it since we
left the Pass. Bridger is a large post. They say there are trains
there from all over the West and people of all sorts, and quite often
there are missionaries."

"Missionaries?" in a faint voice.

"Yes, coming in and going out to the tribes of the Northwest. Suppose
we found one there when we arrived?"

He stopped, watching her.

"Well?" her eyes slanted sideways in a fixity of attention.

"Would you marry David? Then we could all go on together."

Her breath left her and she turned a frightened face on him.

"Why?" she gasped. "What for?"

He la