ready to love him. That did not frighten Shefford, and if she did love
him he was not so sure it would not be an anchor for her. He saw her
danger, and then he became what he had never really been in all the days
of his ministry--the real helper. Unselfishly, for her sake, he found
power to influence her; and selfishly, for the sake of Fay Larkin, he
began slowly to win her to a possible need.

The days passed swiftly. Mormons came and went, though in the open day,
as laborers; new cabins went up, and a store, and other improvements.
Some part of every evening Shefford spent with Fay, and these visits
were no longer unknown to the village. Women gossiped, in a friendly way
about Shefford, but with jealous tongues about the girl. Joe Lake told
Shefford the run of the village talk. Anything concerning the Sago Lily
the droll Mormon took to heart. He had been hard hit, and admitted it.
Sometimes he went with Shefford to call upon her, but he talked little
and never remained long. Shefford had anticipated antagonism on the part
of Joe; however, he did not find it.

Shefford really lived through the busy day for that hour with Fay in the
twilight. And every evening seemed the same. He would find her in the
dark, alone, silent, brooding, hopeless. Her mood did not puzzle him,
but how to keep from plunging her deeper into despair baffled him. He
exhausted all his powers trying to do for her what he had been able to
do for Ruth. Yet he failed. Something had blunted her. The shadow of
that baneful trial hovered over her, and he came to sense a strange
terror in her. It was mostly always present. Was she thinking of Jane
Withersteen and Lassiter, left dead or imprisoned in the valley from
which she had been brought so mysteriously? Shefford wearied his brain
revolving these questions. The fate of her friends, and the cross she
bore--of these was tragedy born, but the terror--that Shefford divined
came of waiting for the visit of the Mormon whose face she had never
seen. Shefford prayed that he might never meet this man. Finally he grew
desperate. When he first arrived at the girl's home she would speak, she
showed gladness, relief, and then straightway she dropped back into the
shadow of her gloom. When he got up to go then there was a wistfulness,
an unspoken need, an unconscious reliance, in her reluctant good night.

Then the hour came when he reached his limit. He must begin his
revelation.

"You never ask me anything--let