t sting women's nerves to death. Don't pay any
attention to whether she likes it or not. Let her behave like a naughty
child, let her kick and scream and cry. Pick her up, Morena, and carry
her off. Do you hear? Don't let her make you change your plans." The
doctor had seen his patient's convulsive jerk. "Pack her up. Make your
reservations and go straight to 'Buck' Yarnall's ranch, Lazy-Y,--that's
his brand, I believe,--Middle Fork, Wyoming. I'll send him a wire. He
knows me. She needs all outdoors to run about in. She needs joggin'
around all day through the sagebrush on a cow-pony in that sun; she
needs the smell of a camp-fire--Gad! wish I could get back to it
myself."

Betty, having heard this out, began to laugh. She laughed till they
gave her something to keep her quiet. But, except for that laughter,
she had made no protest whatever; she did not "kick and scream and
cry." In fact, though she looked like a child, she was not at all
inclined to such exhibitions. This doctor had not seen her through her
recent ordeal. Two years before her breakdown, Jasper had been
terribly hurt in an automobile accident, and Betty had come to him at
the hospital, had waited, as white as a snow-image, for the result of
the examination. They had told her emphatically that there was no
hope. Jasper Morena could not live for more than a few days. She must
not allow herself to hope. He might or might not regain consciousness.
If he did, it would be for a few minutes before the end. Betty had
listened with her white, rigid, child face, had thanked them, had gone
home. There in her exquisite, little sitting room above Central Park,
she had sat at her desk and written a few lines on square, gray note
paper.

"Jasper is dying," she had written. "By the time you get this, he
will be dead. If you can forgive me for having failed in courage
last year, come back. What I have been to you before I will be
again, only, this time we can love openly. Come back."

Then she had dropped her head on the desk and cried. Afterwards she
had addressed her letter to a certain Prosper Gael. The letter went to
Wyoming. When it reached its destination, it was taken over a
mountain-range by a patient Chinaman.

Three days later Jasper regained consciousness and began slowly to
return to health. He had the tenacious vitality of his race, and, in
his own spirit, an iron will to live. He kept Betty beside his bed for
hours, and held her cold hand in h