CHAPTER 10. A SHEPHERD OF THE DESERT
It had been Helen Messiter's daily custom either to take a ride
on her pony or a spin in her motor car, but since Bannister had
been quartered at the Lazy D her time had been so fully occupied
that she had given this up for the present. The arrival of Nora
Darling, however, took so much work off her hands that she began
to continue her rides and drives.
Her patient was by this time so far recovered that he did not
need her constant attendance and there were reasons why she
decided it best to spend only a minimum of her time with him.
These had to do with her increasing interest in the man and the
need she felt to discourage it. It had come to a pretty pass, she
told herself scornfully, when she found herself inventing excuses
to take her into the room where this most picturesque of unhanged
scamps was lying. Most good women are at heart puritans, and if
Helen was too liberal to judge others narrowly she could be none
the less rigid with herself. She might talk to him of her duty,
but it was her habit to be frank in thought and she knew that
something nearer than that abstraction had moved her efforts in
his behalf. She had fought for his life because she loved him.
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