but to Beauty Stanton, the woman of ill-fame, had been given the power.  She gloried in it.  Allie Lee was safely hidden in her house.  The iniquity of her establishment furnished a haven for the body and life and soul of innocent Allie Lee.  Beauty Stanton marveled at the strange ways of life.  If she could have prayed, if she had ever dared to hope for some splendid duty, some atonement to soften the dark, grim ending of her dark career, it would not have been for so much as fate had now dealt to her.  She was overwhelmed with her opportunity.

All at once she reached the end of the street.  On each side the wall of lighted tents and houses ceased.  Had she missed her way—­gone down a side street to the edge of the desert?  No.  The rows of lights behind assured her this was the main street.  Yet she was far from the railroad station.  The crowds of men hurried by, as always.  Before her reached a leveled space, dimly lighted, full of moving objects, and noise of hammers and wagons, and harsh voices.  Then suddenly she remembered.

Benton was being evacuated.  Tents and houses were being taken down and loaded on trains to be hauled to the next construction camp.  Benton’s day was done!  This was the last night.  She had forgotten that the proprietor of her hall, from whom she rented it, had told her that early on the morrow he would take it down section by section, load it on the train, and put it together again for her in the next town.  In forty-eight hours Benton would be a waste place of board floors, naked frames, debris and sand, ready to be reclaimed by the desert.  It would be gone like a hideous nightmare, and no man would believe what had happened there.

The gambling-hell where she had expected to find Neale had vanished, in a few hours, as if by magic.  Beauty Stanton retraced her steps.  She would find Neale in one of the other places—­the Big Tent, perhaps.

This hall was unusually crowded, and the scene had the number of men, though not the women and the hilarity and the gold, that was characteristic of pay-day in Benton.  All the tables in the gambling-room were occupied.

Beauty Stanton stepped into this crowded room, her golden head uncovered, white and rapt and strangely dark-eyed, with all the beauty of her girlhood returned, and added to it that of a woman transformed, supreme in her crowning hour.  As a bad woman, infatuated and piqued, she had failed to allure Neale to baseness; now as a good woman, with pure motive, she would win his friendship, his eternal gratitude.

Stanton had always been a target for eyes, yet never as now, when she drew every gaze like a dazzling light in a dark room.

As soon as she saw Neale she forgot every one else in that hall.  He was gambling.  He did not look up.  His brow was somber and dark.  She approached—­stood behind him.  Some of the players spoke to her, familiarly, as was her bitter due.  Then Neale turned apparently to bow with his old courtesy.  Thrill on thrill coursed over her.  Always he had showed her respect, deference.