Then are my sins by Thee forgiven;
Then dost Thou cheer my solitude
With hopes of heaven.

"No words can tell what sweet relief
There for my every want I find;
What strength for warfare, balm for grief,
What peace of mind!"

She lay down for the night marvelling still over the man. He was singing
those words as if he meant every one, and she knew that he possessed
something that made him different from other men. What was it? It seemed
to her that he was the one man of all the earth, and how was it that she
had found him away out here alone in the desert?

The great stars burned sharply in the heavens over her, the white
radiance of the moon lay all about her, the firelight played at her
feet. Far away she could hear the howling of the coyotes, but she was
not afraid.

She could see the broad shoulders of the man as he stooped over on the
other side of the fire to throw on more wood. Presently she knew he had
thrown himself down with his head on the saddle, but she could hear him
still humming softly something that sounded like a lullaby. When the
firelight flared up it showed his fine profile.

Not far away she could hear Billy cropping the grass, and throughout the
vast open universe there seemed to brood a great and peaceful silence.
She was very tired and her eyelids drooped shut. The last thing she
remembered was a line he had read from the little book, "He shall give
His angels charge----" and she wondered if they were somewhere about
now.

That was all until she awoke suddenly with the consciousness that she
was alone, and that in the near distance a conversation in a low tone
was being carried on.

VII

REVELATION

The moon was gone, and the luminous silver atmosphere was turned into a
clear dark blue, with shadows of the blackness of velvet; but the stars
burned redder now, and nearer to the earth.

The fire still flickered brightly, with a glow the moon had paled before
she went to sleep, but there was no protecting figure on the other side
of the flames, and the angels seemed all to have forgotten.

Off at a little distance, where a group of sage-brush made dense
darkness, she heard the talking. One speaking in low tones, now
pleading, now explaining, deeply earnest, with a mingling of anxiety and
trouble. She could not hear any words. She seemed to know the voice was
low that she might not hear; yet it filled h