admiration.

"What a woman!" he wheezed. "You're brave--like a man. You came back.
I'd like--to live--to serve you further--"

He gurgled, a red stain appeared at the corners of his mouth, and he
closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again his soul was
shining through and he smiled a little. He did not again attempt to
speak, yet, for all that, Donna heard the man-call to the woman that
belonged to him, the mate for whom he had been destined when the world
was first created. There are in this world personalities so finely
attuned to each other that mere words are unnecessary to express the
feelings of each for the other when first they meet. Between certain
rare souls the gulf of convention may be bridged by a glance; the
divine miracle of a pure and holy love, leaping to life in an instant,
can suffer no defilement by a spontaneous and human impulse to grasp
the precious gift ere life departs.

Some women love at first sight, but the vast majority, lacking the
imagination to perceive, at a glance, the attributes that go toward the
making of a Man, only think they love and delay a conventional period
before yielding. But Donna Corblay had lived so long in sordid,
unimaginative, unromantic San Pasqual that, from much inhibition and
introspection, she was different from most women. She had grown to rely
on herself, to trust her own judgment and to bank on first impressions.
As she faced Bob McGraw now, her first impression was that he was
telling her with his eyes that he loved her, that he had ridden in
behind this string of box-cars to purchase her honor at the price of
his life, because he loved her. And inasmuch as there appeared to be
nothing unusual or unconventional in his telling her this--with his