y nothing yet to either of these women. I ask it
for your own sake, and this girl's, not for mine. If, on the contrary,
you are tempted to do so from any Quixotic idea of honor, remember that
you will only precipitate something that will oblige you, from that same
sense of honor, to separate from the girl forever."

"I don't understand."

"Enough!" said he, with a quick return of his old reckless gayety.
"Shoot-Off-His-Mouth--the Beardless Boy Chief of the Sierras--has
spoken! Let the Pale Face with the black moustache ponder and beware how
he talks hereafter to the Rippling Cochituate Water! Go!"

Nevertheless, as soon as the door had closed upon Falkner, Lee's smile
vanished. With his colorless face turned to the fading light at the
window, the hollows in his temples and the lines in the corners of his
eyes seemed to have grown more profound. He remained motionless and
absorbed in thought so deep that the light rustle of a skirt, that would
at other times have thrilled his sensitive ear, passed unheeded. At
last, throwing off his reverie with the full and unrestrained sigh of
a man who believes himself alone, he was startled by the soft laugh of
Mrs. Hale, who had entered the room unperceived.

"Dear me! How portentous! Really, I almost feel as if I were
interrupting a tete-a-tete between yourself and some old flame. I
haven't heard anything so old-fashioned and conservative as that sigh
since I have been in California. I thought you never had any Past out
here?"

Fortunately his face was between her and the light, and the unmistakable
expression of annoyance and impatience which was passed over it was
spared her. There was, however, still enough dissonance in his manner to
affect her quick feminine sense, and when she drew nearer to him it was
with a certain maiden-like timidity.

"You are not worse, Mr. Lee, I hope? You have not over-exerted
yourself?"

"There's little chance of that with one leg--if not in the grave at
least mummified with bandages," he replied, with a bitterness new to
him.

"Shall I loosen them? Perhaps they are too tight. There is nothing so
irritating to one as the sensation of being tightly bound."

The light touch of her hand upon the rug that covered his knees,
the thoughtful tenderness of the blue-veined lids, and the delicate
atmosphere that seemed to surround her like a perfume cleared his face
of its shadow and brought back the reckless fire into his blue eyes.

"I suppose I