Nasmyth."

Carshalton nodded. "Glad to meet you. Won't you sit down?" he said.
"As it happens, I had just pointed you out to Miss Hamilton. We were
talking about the wilderness--or, to be more precise, the great
primeval stillness. I ventured to suggest that you could tell us
something about it."

Nasmyth smiled significantly. "Well," he replied, "I have certainly
spent a few months in the wilderness. That is one of the results."

He meant to indicate the hand that hung by his side in a thick, soft
glove by the gesture he made, but it was the other one that Violet and
Carshalton glanced at. It was scarred and battered, and had opened in
raw red cracks under the frost.

"Ah!" said Carshalton, "I think I was quite warranted in assuring Miss
Hamilton that it was a good deal nicer here. You see, I was up in the
ranges for a week or two. I had to come down with my comrade, who sat
out one night in the snow. The primeval stillness didn't agree with
him."

He met Violet's eyes, and next moment glanced across the room.

"I don't think I've spoken to Mr. Acton this evening," he said. "We'll
have a talk about the wilderness by-and-by, Mr. Nasmyth."

He strolled away, and Nasmyth sat down by Violet's side.

"I fancied the man meant to stay," he remarked.

Violet leaned back in the lounge, and looked at him a moment or two
silently. Her thoughts were confused, and she was uneasy. In the first
place, she almost wished it had not been so easy to make Carshalton
understand that she wished him to go away; for the fact that she had
been able to do so by merely looking at him suggested that there was
at least a certain confidence between them, and she was unwilling to
admit that such was the case. That, however, was only a minor point.
While Carshalton had spoken of the simple life, and admitted that a
few weeks of it was quite enough for him, she had thought with a
certain tenderness of the man who had spent months of strenuous toil
in the misty depths of the canyon. She was glad of this, and felt a
slight compunction over the fact that she had seldom thought of him
of late. Still, when she saw him bearing the marks of those months of
effort on his body and in his worn face, she was sensible that she
shrank from him, as she had once done from the dreary, dripping
wilderness. This was disconcerting, but she could not drive out the
feeling. His worn face vaguely troubled her, and she was sorry for
him, but she would not have