mote her.

"But, Jason," she said, with her eyes aside, and her fingers running
through the hair of little Michael, "but, Jason," she faltered, "you
will not betray me?"

"Betray you?" he said, and laughed a little.

"Because," she added quietly, "though I am here, my husband does not
know me for his wife. He is blind, and cannot see me, and for my own
reasons I have never spoken to him since I came."

"You have never spoken to him?" said Jason.

"Never."

"And how long have you lived in this house?"

"Two years."

Then Jason remembered what Sunlocks had told him at the mines, and in
another moment he had read Greeba's secret by the light of his own.

"I understand," he said, sadly, "I think I understand."

She caught the look of sorrow in his eyes, and said, "But, Jason,
what of yourself?"

At that he laughed again, and tried to carry himself off with a brave
gayety.

"Where have you been?" she asked.

"At Akureyri, Husavik, Reykjavik, the desert--everywhere, nowhere,"
he answered.

"What have you been doing?"

"Drinking, gaming, going to the devil--everything, nothing."

And at that he laughed once more, loudly and noisily, forgetting his
own warning.

"Jason," said Greeba, "I wronged you once, and you have done nothing
since but heap coals of fire on my head."

"No, no; you never wronged me," he said. "I was a fool--that was all.
I made myself think that I cared for you. But it's all over now."

"Jason," she said again, "it was not altogether my fault. My husband
was everything to me; but another woman might have loved you and made
you happy."

"Ay, ay," he said, "another woman, another woman."

"Somewhere or other she waits for you," said Greeba. "Depend on
that."

"Ay, somewhere or other," he said.

"So don't lose heart, Jason," she said; "don't lose heart."

"I don't," he said, "not I;" and yet again he laughed. But, growing
serious in a moment, he said, "And did you leave home and kindred and
come out to this desolate place only that you might live under the
same roof with your husband?"

"My home was his home," said Greeba, "my kindred his kindred, and
where he was there had I to be."

"And have you waited through these two long years," he said, "for the
day and the hour when you might reveal yourself to him?"

"I could have waited for my husband," said Greeba, "through twice the
seven long years that Jacob waited for Rachel."

He paused a moment, and then said, "No, no, I