she said quickly, "if you can help me."

"You walked all the way from the major's here?" he continued, without
taking his eyes from her face.

"Yes," she answered with an affectation of carelessness she had not
shown to Bent. "But I started very early, it was cool and pleasant, and
didn't seem far."

"I'll put you down in San Jose inside the hour. You shall have my horse
and trotting sulky, and I'll drive you myself. Will that do?"

She looked at him wonderingly. She had not forgotten his previous
restraint and gravity, but now his face seemed to have relaxed with some
humorous satisfaction. She felt herself coloring slightly, but whether
with shame or relief she could not tell.

"I shall be so much obliged to you," she replied hesitatingly, "and so
will my father, I know."

"I reckon," said the man with the same look of amused conjecture; then,
with a quick, assuring nod, he turned away, and dived into the wheat
again.

"You're all right now, Miss Mallory," said Bent, complacently. "Dawson
will fix it. He's got a good horse, and he's a good driver, too." He
paused, and then added pleasantly, "I suppose they're all well up at the
house?"

It was so evident that his remark carried no personal meaning to herself
that she was obliged to answer carelessly, "Oh, yes."

"I suppose you see a good deal of Miss Randolph--Miss Adele, I think
you call her?" he remarked tentatively, and with a certain boyish
enthusiasm, which she had never conceived possible to his nature.

"Yes," she replied a little dryly, "she is the only young lady there."
She stopped, remembering Adele's naive description of the man before
her, and said abruptly, "You know her, then?"

"A little," replied the young man, modestly. "I see her pretty often
when I am passing the upper end of the ranch. She's very well brought
up, and her manners are very refined--don't you think so?--and yet she's
just as simple and natural as a country girl. There's a great deal
in education after all, isn't there?" he went on confidentially, "and
although"--he lowered his voice and looked cautiously around him--"I
believe that some of us here don't fancy her mother much, there's no
doubt that Mrs. Randolph knows how to bring up her children. Some people
think that kind of education is all artificial, and don't believe in it,
but I do!"

With the consciousness that she was running away from these people and
the shameful disclosure she had heard last night--with th