light, to the man and woman
watching her.

"I wish you'd both go," she said wearily. "I'd rather be alone with
Bobbie."

Molly smiled and went out with Jordan Morse.

"She gave in all right," remarked Molly, when they were riding down
the hill. "I knew she would."

Morse shrugged his shoulders.

"Of course. She worships Grandoken's youngster.... I was wondering
there once how you felt when you knew she was reading her own
letter."

Molly's face grew dark with passionate rebellion.

"He'll write me one of my own before the year is out," said she.

"I'm not so sure!" responded Morse thoughtfully.

For a long time after the closing of the door, Jinnie sat huddled in
the chair. Nothing else in all the world could have hurt her as she
had been hurt that night, and it wasn't until very late that she crept
in beside the blind boy, and after four or five hours, dropped
asleep.

CHAPTER XLV

WRITING A LETTER TO THEODORE

The first thing Jinnie saw the next morning was the rough draft of the
letter Molly had ordered her to copy. To send it to Theodore was
asking more of her than she could bear. She turned and looked at
Bobbie. He was still sleeping his troubled, short-breathed sleep. She
had shielded him with her life, with her liberty. Now he demanded, in
that helpless, babyish, blind way of his, that she repudiate her
love.

In the loneliness of the gorge house she had become used to the idea
of never again seeing Theodore, but to allow him to think the false
thing in that letter was dreadful. She picked it up and glanced it
over once more, then dropped it as if the paper had scorched her
fingers. She'd die rather than send it, and she would tell her uncle
so when he came that morning.

She was very quiet, more than usually so, when she gave the blind boy
his breakfast.

"Bobbie," she said, "you know I'd do anything for you in this whole
world, don't you? I mean--I mean anything I could?"

Mystified, the boy bobbed his curly head.

"Sure I do, Jinnie, and I'd do anything for you too, honey."

She kissed him passionately, as her eyes sought the letter once more.
It lay on the floor, the words gleaming up at her in sinister
mockery. She tore her eyes from it, shaking in dread. Would she have
the courage to stand against Jordan Morse in this one thing? She had
given in to him at every point, but this time she intended to stand
firmly upon the rock of her love. Once more she picked up the letter
a