that, spoken in a changed and quavering key of helplessness, Dickie
hurried to her, knelt down beside her chair, and took her hands.

"Sheila! I'll do anything!"

His presence, his boyish, quivering touch, so withheld from anything but
boyishness, even the impulsive humility of his thin, kneeling body, were
inexpressibly soothing, inexpressibly comforting. She did not draw away
her hands. She let them cling to his.

"Dickie, will you answer me, quite truthfully and simply, without any
explaining or softening, please, if I ask you a--a dreadful question?"

"Yes, dear."

"I'm not sure if it is a dreadful question, but--but I'm afraid it is."

"Don't worry. Ask me. Surely, I'll answer you the truth without
any fixin's."

Her hands clung a little closer. She was silent, gathering courage. He
felt her slim knees quiver.

"What do they mean, Dickie," she whispered with a wan look, "when they
call me--'Hudson's Queen'?"

Dickie bent from her look as though he felt a pain. He took her hands up
close to his breast. "Who told you that they called you that?" he asked
breathlessly.

"That's what every one calls me--the men over in the Big Horn
country--they tell men that are coming to Millings to be sure to look up
'Hudson's Queen.' Do they mean the Hotel, Dickie? They _do_ mean the
Hotel, don't they, Dickie?--that I am _The_ Hudson's Queen?"

The truth sometimes presents itself like a withering flame. Dickie got
up, put away her hands, walked up and down, then came back to her. He had
heard the epithet and he knew its meaning. He wrestled now with his
longing to keep her from such understanding, or, at least, to soften it.
She had asked for the clear truth and he had promised it to her. He stood
away because he could not trust himself to endure the wincing of her
hands and body when she heard the truth. He hoped dimly that she might
not understand it.

"They don't mean the Hotel, Sheila," he said harshly. "They mean--Father.
You know now what they mean--?" In her stricken and bewildered eyes he
saw that she did know. "I would like to kill them," sobbed Dickie
suddenly. "I would like to kill--_him_. No, no, Sheila, don't you cry.
Don't you. It's not worth cryin' for. It's jest ignorant folks's ignorant
and stupid talk. It's not worth cryin' for." He sat down on the arm of
her chair and fairly gathered her into his arms. He rocked and patted her
shoulder and kissed her gently on her hair--all with that boyishness,
th