talking. He began
cussing you out, and talked pretty hard about what you'd done, and
what he'd done, and what he was going to do--" Nothing, it seemed,
would hurry the story. "Finally, Sassoon says: 'That hound don't know
yet who got his dad. It was Duke Morgan; that's who got him. I was
with Duke when he turned the trick. We rode down to de Spain's ranch
one night to look up a rustler.' That," concluded Pardaloe, "was all
Sassoon would say."

He stopped. He seemed to wait. There was no word of answer, none of
comment from the man sitting near him. But, for one, at least, who
heard the passionless, monotonous recital of a murder of the long ago,
there followed a silence as relentless as fate, a silence shrouded in
the mystery of the darkness and striking despair into two hearts--a
silence more fearful than any word.

Pardaloe shuffled his feet. He coughed, but he evoked no response. "I
thought you was entitled to know," he said finally, "now that Sassoon
will never talk any more."

De Spain moistened his lips. When he spoke his voice was cracked and
harsh, as if with what he had heard he had suddenly grown old.

"You are right, Pardaloe. I thank you. I--when I--in the morning.
Pardaloe, for the present, go back to the Gap. I will talk with
Wickwire--to-morrow."

"Good night, Mr. de Spain."

"Good night, Pardaloe."

Bending forward, limp, in his chair, supporting his head vacantly on
his hands, trying to think and fearing to think, de Spain heard
Pardaloe's measured tread on the descending steps, and listened
mechanically to the retreating echoes of his footsteps down the shaded
street. Minute after minute passed. De Spain made no move. A step so
light that it could only have been the step of a delicate girlhood, a
step free as the footfall of youth, poised as the tread of womanhood
and beauty, came down the stairs. Slight as she was, and silent as he
was, she walked straight to him in the darkness, and, sinking between
his feet, wound her hands through his two arms. "I heard everything,
Henry," she murmured, looking up. An involuntary start of protest was
his only response. "I was afraid of a plot against you. I stayed at
the head of the stairs. Henry, I told you long ago some dreadful thing
would come between us--something not our fault. And now it comes to
dash our cup of happiness when it is filling. Something told me,
Henry, it would come to-night--some bad news, some horror laid up
against us out of a pas