is Uncle Duke to-night, do you know?"

"Lefever says he is up-street somewhere."

"That means Tenison's," said Nan. "You need not be afraid to speak
plainly, as I must. Uncle Duke is very angry--I am deathly afraid of
their meeting."

Even de Spain himself, when he came back the next night, seemed
hardly able to reassure her. Nan, who had stayed at the hospital,
awaited him there, whither Scott had directed him, with her burden of
anxiety still upon her. When she had told all her story, de Spain
laughed at her fears. "I'll bring that man around, Nan, don't worry.
Don't believe we shall ever fight. I may not be able to bring him
around to-morrow, or next week, but I'll do it. It takes two to
quarrel, you know."

"But you don't know how unreasoning Uncle Duke is when he is angry,"
said Nan mournfully. "He won't listen to _any_body. He always would
listen to me until now. Now, he says, I have gone back on him, and he
doesn't care what happens. Think, Henry, where it would put me if
either of you should kill the other. Henry, I've been thinking it all
over for three days now. I see what must come. It will break both our
hearts, I know, but they will be broken anyway. There is no way out,
Henry--none."

"Nan, what do you mean?"

"You must give me up."

They were sitting in the hospital garden, he at her side on the bench
that he called their bench. It was here he had made his unrebuked
avowal--here, he had afterward told her, that he began to live. "Give
you up," he echoed with gentleness. "How could I do that? You're like
the morning for me, Nan. Without you there's no day; you're the kiss
of the mountain wind and the light of the stars to me. Without the
thought of you I'd sicken and faint in the saddle, I'd lose my way in
the hills; without you there would be no to-morrow. No matter where I
am, no matter how I feel, if I think of you strength wells into my
heart like a spring. I never could give you up."

He told her all would be well because it must be well; that she _must_
trust him; that he would bring her safe through every danger and every
storm, if she would only stick to him. And Nan, sobbing her fears one
by one out on his breast, put her arms around his neck and whispered
that for life or death, she _would_ stick.

It was not hard for de Spain next morning to find Duke Morgan. He was
anxious on Nan's account to meet him early. The difficulty was to meet
him without the mob of hangers-on whose appetit