of remorse; and that agony was
communicated to her.

"Neale! she loved you?"

He bowed his head.

"Oh!" Her cry was almost mute, full of an unutterable realization of
tragic fatality for her. "And you--you--"

Allison Lee strode between them facing Neale. "See! She knows... and if
you would spare her--go!" he exclaimed.

"She knows--what?" gasped Neale, in a frenzy between doubt and
certainty.

Allie felt a horrible, nameless, insidious sense of falsity--a nightmare
unreality--an intangible Neale, fated, drifting away from her.

"Good-bye--Allie!... Bless you! I'll be--happy--knowing--you're--" He
choked, and the tears streamed down his face. It was a face convulsed by
renunciation, not by guilt. Whatever he had done, it was not base.

"DON'T LET ME--GO!... _I_--FORGIVE YOU!" she burst out. She held out her
arms. "THERE'S NO ONE IN THE WORLD BUT YOU!"

But Neale plunged away, upheld by Slingerland, and Allie's world grew
suddenly empty and black.

The train swayed and creaked along through the Night with that strain
and effort which told of upgrade. The oil-lamps burned dimly in corners
of the coach. There were soldiers at open windows looking out. There
were passengers asleep sitting up and lying down and huddled over their
baggage.

But Allie Lee was not asleep. She lay propped up with pillows and
blankets, covered by a heavy coat. Her window was open, and a cool
desert wind softly blew her hair. She stared out into the night, and the
wheels seemed to be grinding over her crushed heart.

It was late. An old moon, misshapen and pale, shone low down over a
dark, rugged horizon. Clouds hid the stars. The desert void seemed
weirdly magnified by the wan light, and all that shadowy waste, silent,
lonely, bleak, called out to Allie Lee the desolation of her soul. For
what had she been saved? The train creaked on, and every foot added to
her woe. Her unquenchable spirit, pure as a white flame that had burned
so wonderfully through the months of her peril, flickered now that her
peril ceased to be. She had no fount of emotion left to draw upon, else
she would have hated this creaking train.

It moved on. And there loomed bold outlines of rock and ridge familiar
to her. They had been stamped upon her memory by the strain of her
lonely wanderings along that very road. She knew every rod of the way,
dark, lonely, wild as it was. In the midst of that stark space lay the
spot where Benton had been. A spot lost in t