the floor by him and clung again to his knees, her
head in his lap in pity for him.

"That is the story of the dying lion," he said after a while. "The
lion who worked all his cunning and skill and courage to get the
beautiful doe in his power, only to find he was dying--dying and
could not eat. Could you love a dying lion, child?" he asked
abruptly--"tell me truly, for as you speak so will I act--would make
you queen of all the desert."

She raised her eyes to his. They were wet with tears. He had touched
the pity in them. She saw him as she had never seen him before. All
her fear of him vanished, and she was held by the cords of a strange
fascination. She knew not what she did. The owl looked at her
queerly, and she almost sobbed it out, hysterically:

"Oh, I could--love--you--you--who are so strong and who
suffer--suffer so"--

"You could love me?" he asked. "Then, then I would marry you
to-night--now--if--if--that uncovering--that touch--had not been put
upon me to do nobler things than to gratify my own passion, had not
shown me the other half which all these years has been dead--my
double." He was silent.

"And so I sent to-day," he began after a while, "for a friend of
yours, one with whom you can be happier than--the dying lion. He has
been out of the county--sent out--it was part of the plan, part of
the snare of the lion and his whelp. And so I sent for him this
morning, feeling the death blow, you know. I sent him an urgent
message, to meet you here at nine." He glanced at his watch. "It is
past that now, but he had far to ride. He will come, I hope--ah,
listen!"

They heard the steps of a rider coming up the gravel walk.

"It is he," said Travis calmly--"Clay."

She sprang up quickly, half defiantly. The old Conway spirit flashed
in her eyes and she came to him tall and splendid and with half a
look of protest, half command, and yet in it begging, pleading,
yearning for--she knew not what.

"Why--why--did you? Oh, you do not know! You do not
understand--love--love--can it be won this way--apprenticed,
bargained--given away?"

"You must go with him, he loves you. He will make you happy. I am
dying--is not part of me already dead?"

For answer she came to him, closer, and stood by him as one who in
war stands by a comrade shot through and ready to fall.

He put his arms around her and drew her to him closer, and she did
not resist--but as a child would, hers also she wound around his neck
an