“Don’t,” she pleaded in abandon.  “Don’t!” The hand was still lying idle on the man’s knee, and reaching down she lifted it, held it prisoner between her own.  It was not a suggestion she was combating now.  It was a certainty.  “Promise me you won’t do this thing.”  She shook the hand insistently; at first gently, then, as there was no response, almost roughly.  “Tell me you won’t do it.  Promise me; please, please!”

“But I can’t promise,” said the man dully.  “I’m useless absolutely; I never realised before how useless.  You didn’t intend to do it, but you’ve made me see it all to-day.  I don’t blame you, but I can’t promise.  I can’t.”

Silence fell upon them; silence complete as upon the top of a mountain, as in the depths of a mine, the absolute silence of the prairie.  For seconds it remained with them, for long-drawn-out, distorted seconds; then, interrupting, something happened.  There was not a cloud in the sky, nor the vestige of a cloud.  The sun still shone bright as before; yet distinctly, undeniably, the man felt a great wet spattering drop fall from above upon his hand—­and a moment later another.  He glanced up, hesitated; sprang to his feet, his big body towering above that of the little woman already standing.

“Elizabeth!” he said tensely.  “Cousin Bess!  I can’t believe it.”  He took her by the shoulders compellingly, held her at arm’s length; and the angel who watched halted with pen in air, indecisive.  “We’ve known each other such a ludicrously short time—­but a few hours.  Can it be possible that you really meant that, that at least to someone it does really matter?” It was his turn to question, to wait breathlessly when no answer came.  “Would you really care, you, if I were dead?  Tell me, Bess, tell me, as though you were saying a prayer.”  One hand still retained its grip on her shoulder, but its mate loosened, instinctively sought that averted, trembling chin, as hundreds of men, his ancestors, had done to similar chins in their day, lifted it until their eyes met.  Had he been facing his Maker that moment and the confession his last, Clayton Craig could not have told whether it were passion or art, that action.  “Tell me, Bess girl, is it mere pity, or do you really care?”

Face to face they stood there, eye to eye as two strangers, meeting by chance in darkness and storm, read each the other’s mind in the glitter of a lightning flash.  It was all so swift, so fantastic, so unexpected that for a moment the girl did not realise, did not understand.  For an instant she stood so, perfectly still, her great eyes opening wider and wider, opening wonderingly, dazedly, as though the other had done what she feared—­and of a sudden returned again to life; then in mocking, ironic reaction came tardy comprehension, and with the strength of a captured wild thing she drew back, broke free.  A second longer she stood there, not her chin alone, but her whole body trembling; then without a word she turned, mounted the single step, fumbled at the knob of the door.  “Bess,” said the man softly, “Cousin Bess!” But she did not glance back nor speak, and, listening, his ear to the panel, Craig heard her slowly climb the creaking stairs to her own room and the door close behind her.