“Here’s where I slept,” he whispered.

He wrapped a blanket round her, and then they sat down against the rock, and she leaned upon his shoulder.

“I have your coat and the blanket, too,” she said.  “Won’t you be cold?”

He laughed.  “Now don’t talk any more.  You’re white and fagged-out.  You need to rest—­to sleep.”

“Sleep?  How impossible!” she murmured.

“Why, your eyes are half shut now. ...  Anyway, I’ll not talk to you.  I want to think.”

“Jim! ... kiss me—­good night,” she whispered.

He bent over rather violently, she imagined.  His head blotted out the light of the stars.  He held her tightly for a moment.  She felt him shake.  Then he kissed her on the cheek and abruptly drew away.  How strange he seemed!

For that matter, everything was strange.  She had never seen the stars so bright, so full of power, so close.  All about her the shadows gathered protectingly, to hide her and Jim.  The silence spoke.  She saw Jim’s face in the starlight and it seemed so keen, so listening, so thoughtful, so beautiful.  He would sit there all night, wide-eyed and alert, guarding her, waiting for the gray of dawn.  How he had changed!  And she was his wife!  But that seemed only a dream.  It needed daylight and sight of her ring to make that real.

A warmth and languor stole over her; she relaxed comfortably; after all, she would sleep.  But why did that intangible dread hang on to her soul?  The night was so still and clear and perfect—­a radiant white night of stars—­and Jim was there, holding her—­and to-morrow they would ride away.  That might be, but dark, dangling shapes haunted her, back in her mind, and there, too, loomed Kells.  Where was he now?  Gone—­gone on his bloody trail with his broken fortunes and his desperate bitterness!  He had lost her.  The lunge of that wild mob had parted them.  A throb of pain and shame went through her, for she was sorry.  She could not understand why, unless it was because she had possessed some strange power to instil or bring up good in him.  No woman could have been proof against that.  It was monstrous to know that she had power to turn him from an evil life, yet she could not do it.  It was more than monstrous to realize that he had gone on spilling blood and would continue to go on when she could have prevented it—­could have saved many poor miners who perhaps had wives or sweethearts somewhere.  Yet there was no help for it.  She loved Jim Cleve.  She might have sacrificed herself, but she would not sacrifice him for all the bandits and miners on the border.