the devil should I arrange anything of that sort?"
"Because — I will see her — somewhere and somehow. I wUl see her alone. Scannell has sacked me from Mains; but I'll go back — ^byjiight if they kick me out by day — ^if you won't give me the chance here. You had better give me the chance, Ormond, or — I may do more harm than I have done already."
The steady grey eyes flashed on Randal's face; then dropped. It is not right that one man should look on another man's heart when desperate pain has stripped it naked. Ormond kicked out a broken bolt lying in the dried wash; kicked it again, and it dropped the fifty feet into the creek-bed where a dottreU was piping across the sand-pit to her frightened yovmgsters.
"Does Miss Scannell wish to see you?" he asked at length.
"I don't know."
"Then you want me to do this against Scan- nell's express desire, and possibly against hers too?"
"Yes."
"You are asking a great deal."
"Yes."
Ormond hesitated. He acknowledged the pride that cut all explanations;. and, very cer- tainly, pity hurt him for the man who could
