The woman sitting opposite him shivered telepathically and a tear fell on the face of the child.
"He is weighing me against her," she thought, fearfully, "and I am afraid--afraid! But I will not give him up! Oh, my God! I can not!"
And down at the C Bar Grace was crying to her heart:
But it was Red McVey who came awooing in the soft dusk of the succeeding evening, his handsome face bright with a great love, his six feet of stalwart manliness begroomed with appropriate care. He was far from possessing his ordinary confidence, but he came bravely to the point and the girl's eyes held as much pride as they did sympathy for him.
"Your love is an honor to me," she said, gently. "I am proud to have inspired such a feeling in so grand a man, and I shall thank God on my knees for it to-night! But it is impossible, my dear friend; you will be generous and spare me explanations--"
"Don't cry!" he said, gently, but his face was very white and drawn. "I understand. Yuh are shore they ain't any hope. I'd wait foh yeahs?"
"No, dear friend, there is none. I do not think I shall ever marry. And I am going away to-morrow."
She held out her hand and he bent awkwardly over it. Very softly he pressed his lips upon the little pink palm. Then he stood erect, still holding the fluttering fingers in both his bronzed hands.
"Yuh will neveh know what yuh've been to me," he said, gravely, "and what yuh will always be to me still. It's goin' to hurt a little, of course; but I'll have my dreams, and that's something. And I'm shore yuah friend as you said. Gawd make yuh happy!"
Then he went quietly out, carefully closing the door behind him. The girl waited until the last echo of his firm steps had died away. Then she sat down beside the table, laid her face on her arms and cried bitterly.
It never occurred to either of them that he had made no reference to her engagement to Douglass, whose severance he could not possibly have known except by deduction.
The next afternoon he drove her over to a point where the stage could be intercepted without going to Tin Cup. She desired to avoid the possibility of a chance meeting with Constance Brevoort or Douglass, despite an almost irresistible temptation to see him for the last time. In ten days more she was aboard an ocean liner, her mother unquestioningly complying with her request for a continental tour, wisely leaving the girl to her own time in the matter of explanations. Besides, she had adroitly drawn out of Robert enough to confirm her suspicions, and she was unqualifiedly glad to encourage any distractions for the pale girl whose eyes were heavy with misery. As Grace expressed no preference she decided on Egypt, and the departure was made without unnecessary loss of time.