n too much. They've been stranger things
than that, in this world!" He hitched his belt so that the butt of his
revolver came farther forward. But now Kate Cumberland advised: "Buck,
you're tired out; you don't know what you're saying. Better go up to
bed."

He flushed a ruddy bronze.

"D'you think I'm jest talkin' words, Kate, to hear myself talk?"

"Listen!" broke in Joe Cumberland, and raised a bony forefinger for
silence.

* * * * *

And the doctor noted a great change in the old man. There was no longer
a tremor in his body. There was only a calm and smiling expectation--a
certainty. A tinge of colour was in his withered face for the first time
since Byrne had come to the ranch, and now the cattleman raised his
finger with such an air of calm authority that at once every voice in
the room was stilled.

"D'ye hear?"

They did not. They heard only the faint rushing of the air through the
window. The flame danced in the chimney of the lamp and changed the
faces in phantastic alteration. One and all, they turned and faced the
window. Still there was not a sound audible, but the doctor felt as if
the noise were approaching. He knew it as surely as if he could see some
far-off object moving near and nearer. And he knew, as clearly, that the
others in the room felt the same thing. He turned his glance from the
window towards Kate Cumberland. Her face was upturned. There was about
it a transparent pallor; the eyes were large and darkly ringed; the lips
parted into the saddest and the most patient of smiles; and the slender
fingers were interwoven and pressed against the base of her throat.

For the first time he saw how the fire that was so manifest in the old
man had been consuming her, also. It left no mark of the coming of death
upon her. But it had burned her pure and left her transparent as
crystal. Pity swelled in the throat of Byrne as he realised the anguish
of her long waiting. Fear mingled with his pity. He felt that something
was coming which would seize on her as the wind seizes on the dead leaf,
whirling her off into an infinity of storm and darkness into which he
could not follow a single pace.

He turned back towards the window. The rush of air played steadily, and
then in pulses, upon his face. Then even the wind ceased; as if it, too,
were waiting. Not a sound. But silence has a greater voice than discord
or music. It seemed to Byrne that he could tell how fast eac