ose
natural protectors I dare not face. I have never pursued an innocent
girl to the house I dared not enter. When I found that I could not
honorably retain Dona Rosita's affection, I fled her roof. When I
believed that even if I broke with this scoundrel--as I did--I was still
legally if not morally tied to your wife, and could not marry Rosita, I
left her never to return. And I tore my heart out to do it."

The tears were standing in his eyes. Demorest regarded him again with
vacant wonder. Tears!--not for Joan's unfaithfulness to him--but for
this silly girl's transitory sentimentalism. It was horrible!

And yet what was Joan to Blandford now? Why should he weep for the woman
who had never loved him--whom he loved no longer? The woman who had
deceived him--who had deceived them BOTH. Yes! for Joan must have
suspected that Blandford was living to have sought her secret
divorce--and yet she had never told him--him--the man for whom she got
it. Ah! he must not forget THAT! It was to marry him that she had taken
that step. It was perhaps a foolish caution--a mistaken reservation; but
it was the folly--the mistake of a loving woman. He hugged this belief
the closer, albeit he was conscious at the same time of following
Blandford's story of his alienated affection with a feeling of wonder
and envy.

"And what was the result of this touching sacrifice?" continued
Blandford, trying to resume his former cynical indifference. "I'll tell
you. This scoundrel set himself about to supplant me. Taking advantage
of my absence, his knowledge that her affection for me was heightened by
the mystery of my life, and trusting to profit by a personal resemblance
he is said to bear to me, he began to haunt her. Lately he has grown
bolder, and he dared even to communicate with her here. For it is he,"
he continued, again giving way to his passion, "this dog, this sneaking
coward, who visits the place unknown to you, and thinks to entrap the
poor girl through her memory of me. And it is he that I came here to
prevent, to expose--if necessary to kill! Don't misunderstand me. I have
made myself a deputy of the law for that purpose. I've a warrant in my
pocket, and I shall take him, this mongrel, half-breed Cherokee Bob, by
fair means or foul!"

The energy and presence of his passion was so infectious that it
momentarily swept away Demorest's doubts of the past. "And I will help
you, before God, Blandford," he said eagerly. "And Joan shall,