own advantage. I lost her love because she found me
out--through you. Mild justice that, perhaps! But all the same, getting
her for mine _has_ been for my advantage. In a different way from what I
planned, but ten thousand times greater. Though she's taken her love from
me, she's given me back my soul. Nothing can rob me of that so long as I
run straight.

"And I tell you, Madalena, this ranch, where I'm working out some kind of
expiation and maybe redemption, _is_ God's earth for me. _Now_ do you
understand?"

For an instant the woman was silent. Then she broke into loud sobbing,
which she did not try to check.

"You are a fool, Don!" she wept. "A fool!"

"Maybe. But I'm not the devil's fool as I used to be. Don't cry. You
might be heard. Come. It's time to go. We've said all we have to say to
each other except good-bye--if that's not mockery."

Madalena dried her tears, still sobbing under her breath.

"At least take me to the automobile," she said. "Don't send me off alone
in the night. I am afraid."

"There's nothing to be afraid of," Knight answered, the flame of his
fierceness burnt down. "But I'll go with you, and put you on the way back
to El Paso. Come along!"

As he spoke, he started, and Madalena was forced to go with him, forced
to keep up with his long strides if she would not be left behind.

When they had gone Annesley lay motionless, as though she were under
a spell. The man's words to the other woman wove the spell which bound
her, listening as they repeated themselves in her mind. Again and again
she heard them, as they had fallen from his lips.

His expiation--perhaps his redemption--here on his bit of "God's
earth" ... "It may be true that she treats me like a dog.... But I'd
rather be her dog than any other woman's master...." And this was Easter
eve, a year to the night since his martyrdom began!

Something seemed to seize Annesley by the hand and break the bonds that
had held her, something strong although invisible. She sat up with a
faint cry, as of one awakened from a dream, and slipped out of the
hammock. There was a dim idea in her mind that she must go along the road
where they had gone, so as to meet Knight on his way back. She did not
know what she should say to him, or whether she could say anything at
all; but the something which had taken her hand and snatched her out
of the hammock dragged her on and on.

At first she obeyed the force blindly.

"I must see him! I must