nybody throw that
stone!" His voice had more the accent of a command than an inquiry.

"I really didn't; the men were standing so closely ... nobody saw."

"That's good. You'll drive home with me, for certain."

"I'm glad you didn't kill him," she confided to Gordon in the buggy. She
was sitting very close to him. "It would have--upset things."

"I don't believe you were a scrap frightened," he asserted admiringly.

"I wasn't. I thought how foolish you would be to spoil everything for
yourself."

"I would have gone into the mountains," he explained; "a hundred men would
have kept the law off me. I was a year and a half there, when--when I was
younger," he ended lamely.

"I like that," she replied, "I understand it. I've wanted to murder; but
it would have been silly, I would have had to pay too dearly for a passing
rage." There was a menace in her even voice, a cold echo like that from a
closed, empty room, that oppressed Gordon unpleasantly.

"I guess you're not as dangerous as that," he responded, more lightly. He
wondered, unable to decide, if she were consciously pressing her body
against him, or if it were merely the jolting of the buggy? They were
passing through the valley that led into Greenstream; the sun was lowering
behind them, the shadows creeping out. They dropped from the rough, minor
forms into the bigger sweep--it was like a great, green bed half filled
with a gold flood. Gordon's horse walked, and, in their slow progress, the
stream of light flowing between the ranges changed to a stream of shadow.
A miraculous pink rose opened in the east and scattered its glowing petals
across the sky. The buggy wound, like an infinitesimal toy, over the
darkening road.

He passed his dwelling, a long, irregular roof against the veiled surface
of the stream; a light shone from the kitchen window. The streets of the
village, folded in warm dusk, were empty; the white columns of the
Courthouse glimmered behind the shafts of the trees on the lawn. Supper
was in progress at Peterman's hotel; as Gordon and Meta Beggs left the
buggy they heard the rattle of dishes within. She walked a few steps, then
stopped, was about to speak, but she saw that Gordon had followed her, and
turned and led the way to the steps giving to the gallery above.

Gordon Makimmon followed her without reason, without plan, almost
subconsciously. He walked close behind her to where she opened the door to
her room: it was grey within, a dim