ed over them, and the norther shrieked in
their ears, and the earth's blackness swallowed them up until they seemed
alone as a man and a woman never had been alone before.

The _rebozo_ sagged about them at intervals, weighted down with the dust;
but again it rippled like a sail when an eccentric gust swept away the
accumulated sediment.

The desert was a thing of blank darkness. A protected torch would have
been invisible to one staring toward it a dozen steps away. A temporary
death had invaded the world. There was neither movement nor sound save the
frenzied dance of dust and the whistle of winds which seemed shunted
southward from the north star.

Runyon's hand travelled soothingly from Sylvia's shoulder to her cheek. He
held her to him with a tender, eloquent pressure. He was the man, whose
duty it was to protect; and she was the woman, in need of protection.

And Sylvia thought darkly of the ingenuities of Destiny which set at
naught the petty steps which the proprieties have taken--as if the gods
were never so diverted as when they were setting the stage for tragedy, or
as if the struggles and defeats of all humankind were to them but a proper
comedy.

But Runyon was thinking how rare a thing it is for a man and a woman to be
quite alone in the world; how the walls of houses listen, and windows are
as eyes which look in as well as out; how highways forever hold their
malicious gossips to note the movements of every pair who do not walk
sedately; how you may mount the stairway of a strange house--and encounter
one who knows you at the top, and who laughs in his sleeve; how you may
emerge from the house in which you have felt safe from espionage--only to
encounter a familiar talebearer at the door.

But here indeed were he and Sylvia alone.

CHAPTER XXIII

Before the next spring came two entirely irreconcilable discoveries were
made in Eagle Pass.

The first of these was made by certain cronies of the town who found their
beer flat if there was not a bit of gossip to go with it, and it was to
the effect that the affair between Sylvia and Runyon was sure to end
disastrously if it did not immediately end otherwise.

The other discovery was made by Harboro, and it was to the effect that
Sylvia had at last blossomed out as a perfectly ideal wife.

A certain listlessness had fallen from her like a shadow. Late in the
winter--it was about the time of the ride to the Quemado, Harboro thought
it must h