His voice was so gentle that Molly Wingate felt a vague sort of jealousy.  He might have taken her scorched hand in his, might at least have had some thought for her welfare.  He did speak at last as to that.

“What’s in your wagon?” he asked.  “We had better go there to wait.  Have you anything along—­oil, flour, anything to use on burns?  You’re burned.  It hurts me to see a woman suffer.”

“Are not you burned too?”

“Yes.”

“It pains you?”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

He rose and led the way over the damper ground to the wagon, which stood smoke-stained but not charred, thanks to his own resourcefulness.

Molly climbed up to the seat, and rummaging about found a jar of butter, a handful of flour.

“Come up on the seat,” said she.  “This is better medicine than nothing.”

He climbed up and sat beside her.  She frowned again as she now saw how badly scorched his hands were, his neck, his face.  His eyebrows, caught by one wisp of flame, were rolled up at the ends, whitened.  One cheek was a dull red.

Gently, without asking his consent, she began to coat his burned skin as best she might with her makeshift of alleviation.  His hand trembled under hers.

“Now,” she said, “hold still.  I must fix your hand some more.”

She still bent over, gently, delicately touching his flesh with hers.  And then all in one mad, unpremeditated instant it was done!

His hand caught hers, regardless of the pain to either.  His arm went about her, his lips would have sought hers.

It was done!  Now he might repent.

A mad way of wooing, inopportune, fatal as any method he possibly could have found, moreover a cruel, unseemly thing to do, here and with her situated thus.  But it was done.

Till now he had never given her grounds for more than guessing.  Yet now here was this!

He came to his senses as she thrust him away; saw her cheeks whiten, her eyes grow wide.

“Oh!” she said.  “Oh!  Oh!  Oh!”

“Oh!” whispered Will Banion to himself, hoarsely.

He held his two scorched hands each side her face as she drew back, sought to look into her eyes, so that she might believe either his hope, his despair or his contrition.

But she turned her eyes away.  Only he could hear her outraged protest—­“Oh!  Oh!  Oh!”

CHAPTER XIV

THE KISS

“It was the wind!” Will Banion exclaimed.  “It was the sky, the earth!  It was the fire!  I don’t know what it was!  I swear it was not I who did it!  Don’t forgive me, but don’t blame me.  Molly!  Molly!

“It had to be sometime,” he went on, since she still drew away from him.  “What chance have I had to ask you before now?  It’s little I have to offer but my love.”

“What do you mean?  It will never be at any time!” said Molly Wingate slowly, her hand touching his no more.