sure, you know, dearie. Men are always presuming and
pursuing, dearie."

"Then you didn't hear of Trevison's whereabouts from Ruth Gresham?"

"Why, no, dearie! He wrote directly to me."

Rosalind hadn't _that_ to reproach herself with, at any rate!

"Of course, I couldn't go to his ranch--the Diamond K, isn't it?--so,
noting from one of the newspapers that you had come here, I decided to
take advantage of _your_ hospitality. I'm just wild to see the dear boy!
Is his ranch far? For you know," she added, with a malicious look at the
girl's pale face; "I must not keep him waiting, now that I am here."

"You won't find him prosperous." It hurt Rosalind to say that, but the
hurt was slightly offset by a savage resentment that gripped her when she
thought of how quickly Hester had thrown Trevison over when she had
discovered that he was penniless. And she had a desperate hope that the
dismal aspect of Trevison's future would appall Hester--as it would were
the woman still the mercenary creature she had been ten years before. But
Hester looked at her with grave imperturbability.

"I heard something about his trouble. About some land, isn't it? I didn't
learn the particulars. Tell me about it--won't you, dearie?"

Rosalind's story of Trevison's difficulties did not have the effect that
she anticipated.

"The poor, dear boy!" said Hester--and she seemed genuinely moved.
Rosalind gulped hard over the shattered ruins of this last hope and got
up, fighting against an inhospitable impulse to order Hester away. She
made some slight excuse and slipped to her room, where she stayed long,
elemental passions battling riotously within her.

She realized now how completely she had yielded to the spell that the
magnetic and impetuous exile had woven about her; she knew now that had he
pressed her that day when he had told her of his love for her she must
have surrendered. She thought, darkly, of his fiery manner that day, of
his burning looks, his hot, impulsive words, of his confidences. Hypocrisy
all! For while they had been together he must have been thinking of
sending for Hester! He had been trifling with her! Faith in an ideal is a
sacred thing, and shattered, it lights the fires of hate and scorn, and
the emotions that seethed through Rosalind's veins as in her room she
considered Trevison's unworthiness, finally developed into a furious
vindictiveness. She wished dire, frightful calamities upon him, and then,
swiftly react