over the precipice, as he swiftly crossed for the
artist's things. Recovering his own rifle, he ran back to the girl.

"Listen, Miss Andres," said the convict, speaking quickly. "Mr. King will
be all right in a few minutes. That rifle-shot will likely bring his
friends; if not, you are safe, now, anyway. I dare not take chances.
Good-by."

From where she sat with the unconscious man's head in her lap, she looked
at him, wonderingly. "Good-by?" she repeated questioningly.

Henry Marston smiled grimly. "Certainly, good-by What else is there for
me?"

A moment later, she saw him running swiftly down the mountainside, like
some hunted creature of the wilderness.

Chapter XXXIX

The Better Way

Alone on the mountainside with the man who had awakened the pure passion
of her woman heart, Sibyl Andres bent over the unconscious object of her
love. She saw his face, unshaven, grimy with the dirt of the trail and the
sweat of the fight, drawn and thin with the mental torture that had driven
him beyond the limit of his physical strength; she saw how his clothing
was stained and torn by contact with sharp rocks and thorns and bushes;
she saw his hands--the hands that she had watched at their work upon her
portrait as she stood among the roses--cut and bruised, caked with blood
and dirt--and, seeing these things, she understood.

In that brief moment when she had watched Aaron King in the struggle upon
the ledge,--and, knowing that he was fighting for her, had realized her
love for him,--all that Mrs. Taine had said to her in the studio was swept
away. The cruel falsehoods, the heartless misrepresentations, the vile
accusations that had caused her to seek the refuge of the mountains and
the protection of her childhood friends were, in the blaze of her awakened
passion, burned to ashes; her cry to the convict--"I love him, I love
him"--was more than an expression of her love; it was a triumphant
assertion of her belief in his love for her--it was her answer to the evil
seeing world that could not comprehend their fellowship.

As the life within the man forced him slowly toward consciousness, the
girl, natural as always in the full expression of herself, bent over him
with tender solicitude. With endearing words, she kissed his brow, his
hair, his hands. She called his name in tones of affection. "Aaron, Aaron,
Aaron." But when she saw that he was about to awake, she deftly slipped
off her jacket and, placing it und