all night with Carthy to keep hands off, I--I swear
I'll never set foot inside the place again. You ain't agoin' to be _my_
beacon light--"

"Well, then," said Sheila, "I shall have done one good thing at least by
being there."

Dickie, going out, had passed a breathless Sylvester on his way in. The
two had looked at each other with a look that cut in two the tie between
them, and Sheila, running to Sylvester, had burst into tears.

* * * * *

The motor hummed evenly on its way. It began, with a change of tune, to
climb the graded side of one of the enormous mesas. Sheila, having lived
through again that scene with Dickie, took out a small handkerchief and
busied herself with it under her veil. She laughed shakily.

"Perhaps a beacon does more good by warning people away than by
attracting them," she said. "Dickie has certainly kept his word. I don't
believe he's touched a drop since I've been barmaid, Mr. Hudson. I
should think you'd be proud of him."

Sylvester was silent while they climbed the hill. He changed gears and
sounded his horn. They passed another motor on a dangerous curve. They
began to drop down again.

"Some day," said Sylvester in a quiet voice, "I'll break every bone in
Dickie's body." He murmured something more under his breath in too low a
tone, fortunately, for Sheila's ear. From her position behind the bar,
she had become used to swearing. She had heard a strange variety of
language. But when Sylvester drew upon his experience and his fancy, the
artist in him was at work.

"Do you suppose," asked his companion in an impersonal tone, "that it was
really a hard thing for Dickie to do--to give it up, I mean?"

"By the look of him the last few months," snarled Sylvester, "I should
say it had taken out of him what little real feller there ever was in."

Sheila considered this. She remembered Dickie, as he had risen behind the
desk half an hour before. She did not contradict Sylvester. She had
learned not to contradict him. But Dickie's face with its tight-knit look
of battle stood out very clear to refute the accusation of any loss of
manliness. He was still a quaint and ruffled Dickie. But he was vastly
aged. From twenty to twenty-seven, he seemed to have jumped in a few
weeks. A key had turned in the formerly open door of his spirit. The
indeterminate lips had shut hard, the long-lashed eyes had definitely put
a guard upon their dreams. He was shockingly thin