This was the man she had striven to despise, and yet she, who had never concerned herself with woman's work before, forgot her weariness as she waited to minister to him.

It was but little help that she could offer--a gentle touch that checked a restless movement, a wrinkle smoothed from the pillow--but it was done with a great tenderness, for fibres in the girl's nature that had lain silent long awoke that night and thrilled.
Now and then Alton moved a little, and once or twice he moaned.

The firewood snapped and crackled in the stove, the sigh of the pines came up in fantastic cadence across the clearing, and so while the dark angel stooped above the lonely ranch the night wore on.
There was, however, one man in Somasco ranch who needed sleep that night and found it fly from him.

Deringham, who had spoken with the doctor, lay fully dressed in an adjoining room, listening to the ticking of his watch, and for any sound that might rise from beyond the cedar boarding where his daughter kept her vigil.

He had gathered that before the morning Alton of Somasco and Carnaby would either have laid aside his activities for ever or be within hope of recovery, and while Deringham dare not ask himself just then whether he desired the death of his kinsman, the suspense was maddening.