dumped at random over the cheerless soil. Above swam the marvellous
clarified atmosphere of the sky, like iridescent gauze, showering a
thousand harmonies of metallic colors. Like a dome of vitrified glass, it
shut down on the illimitable, tawdry sweep of defaced earth.

The horse started: a human figure, a woman's dress, disturbing here in the
desert expanse, had moved in front of him. Sommers hit the horse with his
crop and was about to gallop on, when something in the way the woman held
herself caught his attention. She was leaning against the wind, her skirt
streaming behind her, her face thrust into the air. Sommers reined in his
horse and jumped down.

"How is your husband?" he asked brusquely.

Mrs. Preston looked up with a smile of glad recognition, but she did not
answer immediately.

"You remember, don't you?" the doctor said kindly. "You are Mrs. Preston,
aren't you? I am the doctor who operated on your husband a few weeks ago at
the hospital."

"Yes, I remember," she replied, almost sullenly.

"How is he? I left St. Isidore's the next day. Is he still in the
hospital?"

"They discharged him last Monday," Mrs. Preston answered, in the same dull
tone.

"Ah!" The doctor jerked the bridle which he held in his left hand and