, I want to be charitable. I want to
understand. I want to excuse you if I can. Won't you tell me why you
shot me, and why that change came over you when you saw me lying there?"

"No, M'sieu David, I shall not tell." She was not antagonistic or
defiant. Her voice was not raised, nor did it betray an unusual
emotion. It was simply decisive, and the unflinching steadiness of her
eyes and the way in which she sat with her hands folded gave to it an
unqualified definiteness.

"You mean that I must make my own guess?"

She nodded.

"Or get it out of St. Pierre?"

"If St. Pierre wishes to tell you, yes."

"Well--" He leaned a little toward her. "After that you dragged me up
into the shade, dressed my wound and made me comfortable. In a hazy
sort of way I knew what was going on. And a curious thing happened. At
times--" he leaned still a little nearer to her--"at times--there
seemed to be two of you!"

He was not looking at her hands, or he would have seen her fingers
slowly tighten in her lap.

"You were badly hurt," she said. "It is not strange that you should
have imagined things, M'sieu David."

"And I seemed to hear two voices," he went on.

She made no answer, but continued to look at him steadily.

"And the other had hair that was like copper and gold fire in the sun.
I would see your face and then hers, again and again--and--since
then--I have thought I was a heavy load for your hands to drag up
through that sand to the shade alone."

She held up her two hands, looking at them. "They are strong," she said.

"They are small," he insisted, "and I doubt if they could drag me
across this floor."

For the first time the quiet of her eyes gave way to a warm fire. "It
was hard work," she said, and the note in her voice gave him warning
that he was approaching the dead-line again. "Bateese says I was a fool
for doing it. And if you saw two of me, or three or four, it doesn't
matter. Are you through questioning me, M'sieu David? If so, I have a
number of things to do."

He made a gesture of despair. "No, I am not through. But why ask you
questions if you won't answer them?"

"I simply can not. You must wait."

"For your husband?"

"Yes, for St. Pierre."

He was silent for a moment, then said, "I raved about a number of
things when I was sick, didn't I?"

"You did, and especially about what you thought happened in the sand.
You called this--this other person--the Fire Goddess. You were so near
dying