"Git up!" said one
voice. "Git around there!" Then came certain oaths on the part of
both men, and conversation whose import she did not know.

Their voices were as though heard in a dream. There suddenly came an
overwhelming sense of guilt to Mary Warren. She had been unfair to
this man! He was a trifle crude, yes; but kind, gentle, unpresuming.
She felt safer and safer--guilty and more guilty. How could she ever
explain it all to him?

"I reckon they're all right now," said Sim Gage, after a considerable
battle with his team. "Nothing busted much. Git up on the seat, won't
you, Bill, and drive acrosst--I got to help that lady git in."

"Who is she?" demanded the other, who had not failed to note the
waiting figure.

"It's none of your damn business," said Sim Gage. "That is, it's my
housekeeper--she's going to cook for the hay hands."

"With a two months' start?" grinned the other.

"Drive on acrosst now," said Sim Gage, in grim reply, which closed the
other's mouth at once.

Mary Warren heard the crunch of wheels, heard the thump of her valise
as Sim Gage caught it up and threw it into the back of the buckboard.
Then he spoke again. She felt him standing close at hand. Once more,
trembling as in an ague, she placed a hand upon his arm.

"Now, when I tell you," he said gently, "why, you put your foot up on
the hub of the wheel here, and grab the iron on the side, and climb in
quick--these horses is sort of uneasy."

"I can't see the wheel," said Mary Warren, groping.

She felt his hand steadying her--felt the rim of the wheel under her
hand, felt him gently if clumsily try to help her up. Her foot missed
the hub of the wheel, the horses started, and she almost fell--would
have done so had not he caught her in his arms. It was almost the
first time in his life, perhaps the only time, that he had felt the
full weight of a woman in his arms. She disengaged herself, apologized
for her clumsiness.

"You didn't hurt yourself, any?" said he anxiously.

"No," she said. "But I'm blind--_I'm blind_! Oh, don't you know?"

He said nothing. How could she know that her words brought to Sim Gage
not regret, but--relief!

He steadied her foot so that it might find the hub of the wheel,
steadied her arm, cared for her as she clambered into the seat.

"All right," she heard him say, not to her; and then he replaced the
other man on the high seat. The horses plunged forward. She felt
herself helple