e had no wish to see him, so she had
schooled herself. She would decline to see him, were he to ask for her
at the door; but, not for an instant did she wish to hear that he did
not wish to see her, yet he had haplessly, brusquely said he wouldn't
have come had he known she was there. It was her duty to leave him,
instantly. It was her desire first to punish him.

"My aunt is not at home," she began, the frost of the Sierras in her
tone.

"I just left her, a moment ago, at the hospital," said he, steadfastly
ignoring her repellent tone. Indeed, if anything, the tone rejoiced
him, for it told a tale she would not have told for realms and
empires. He was ten years older and had lived. "But--forgive me," he
went on, "you are trembling, Miss Angela." She was, and loathed
herself, and promptly denied it. He gravely placed a chair. "You fell
heavily, and it must have jarred you. Please sit down," and stepping
to the _olla_, "let me bring you some water."

She was weak. Her knees, her hands, were shaking as they never shook
before. He had seen her aunt at the hospital. He had left her aunt
there without a moment's delay that he might hasten to see her,
Angela. He was here and bending over her, with brimming gourd of cool
spring water. Nay, more, with one hand he pressed it to her lips, with
the other he held his handkerchief so that the drops might not fall
upon her gown. He was bending over her, so close she could hear, she
thought, the swift beating of his heart. She knew that if what Aunt
Janet had told, and her father had seen, of him were true, she would
rather die than suffer a touch of his hand. Yet one hand had touched
her, gently, yet firmly, as he helped her to the chair, and the touch
she loathed was sweet to her in spite of herself. From the moment of
their first meeting this man had done what no other man had done
before--spoken to her and treated her as a grown woman, with a man's
admiration in his fine blue eyes, with deference in word and chivalric
grace in manner. And in spite of the mean things whispered about
him--about him and--anybody, she had felt her young heart going out to
him, her buoyant, joyous, healthful nature opening and expanding in
the sunshine of his presence. And now he had come to seek her, after
all the peril and excitement and trouble he had undergone, and now,
all loverlike tenderness and concern, was bending over her and
murmuring to her, his deep voice almost as tremulous as her hand