bly tired. I will find you
some place to sleep."

"It has been a strenuous campaign," he admitted. "I've been practically
without sleep for three nights, but that's all in my job. I won't mind if
Higley will 'soak' those fellows properly."

She looked troubled. "I don't know what to do about a bed for you;
everything is taken--except the couch in the front room."

"Don't trouble, I beg of you. I can pitch down anywhere. I'm used to hard
beds. I must be up early to-morrow, anyway."

"Please don't go till after breakfast," she smiled, wanly, "I may need
you."

He understood. "What did the doctor say?"

"He said mother was in a very low state of vitality and that she must be
very careful, which was easy enough to say. But how can I get her to rest
and to diet? You have seen how little she cares for the doctor's orders.
He told her not to touch alcohol."

"She is more like a man than a woman," he answered.

She led the way into the small sitting-room which lay at the front of the
house, and directly opposite the door of her own room. It was filled with
shabby parlor furniture, and in one corner stood a worn couch. "I'm sorry,
but I can offer nothing better," she said. "Every bed is taken, but I have
plenty of blankets."

There was something delightfully suggestive in being thus waited upon by a
young and handsome woman, and the ranger submitted to it with the awkward
grace of one unaccustomed to feminine care. The knowledge that the girl
was beneath him in birth, and that she was considered to be (in a sense)
the lovely flower of a corrupt stock, made the manifest innocency of her
voice and eyes the more appealing. He watched her moving about the room
with eyes in which a furtive flame glowed.

"This seems a long way from that dinner at Redfield's, doesn't it?" he
remarked, as she turned from spreading the blankets on the couch.

"It is another world," she responded, and her face took on a musing
gravity.

Then they faced each other in silence, each filled with the same delicious
sense of weakness, of danger, reluctant to say good-night, longing for the
closer touch which dawning love demanded, and yet--something in the girl
defended her, defeated him.

"You must call me if I can be of any help," he repeated, and his voice was
tremulous with feeling.

"I will do so," she answered.

Still they did not part. His voice was very tender as he said, "I don't
like to see you exposed to such experiences."

"I w