ich would be kinder by far. And then, half
lifting her, he had swung her around to him. For a moment he held her,
face close to that small, frightened face buried in its deep collar,
while she struggled uselessly against those hard arms which tried not
to hurt her. Her lips continued to rebel, long after her eyes had
closed--long after body and brain were quiescent.

"You mustn't!" she gasped. "Oh, I can't let you . . . the moon . . .
we--we're sure to be seen!"

His lips on hers silenced that last incoherent resistance. She sat,
wavy brown head bowed, when he had set her free.

"I was going to ask you not to forget!" There was no weariness now in
his voice. "I had planned to ask you just that, a little ago, and it
would have been a weak and useless request, wouldn't it? Any man who
has to beg to be remembered is not the sort to remain long in any
woman's brain. So I have taught you to remember, instead. You aren't
going to forget, ever, now! You're coming back in the spring, and
you're coming to stay! And now _I'm_ telling _you_ good-bye. It's
time you were asleep."

He helped her to her feet. Together they turned--and Archibald
Wickersham, tall to gauntness in the moonlight, was coming across
toward them from the direction of the cabin. The girl's slim body
stiffened, but Steve saw her chin come up. His own body grew lazier
still, it seemed, in length and limb.

Wickersham's approaching steps were crisply precise; he stopped an
arm's length in front of them, and his words were an echo of that last
sentence of Steve's.

"It's time you retired," he said, ignoring the other man's presence
entirely. "It's cold, and you have a long, hard ride ahead of you
to-morrow."

For a barely perceptible moment, with the eyes of both men upon her,
Barbara kept her place. Neither of them saw that her teeth were
tightly closed over one full lip; neither knew that she had closed her
eyes, dizzily, for an instant. And then, without a word, she put her
hand upon the arm which Wickersham offered her; but Steve, on the other
side, walked with her that night, as far as the door of the storehouse
shack. Miriam herself opened the door and snatched Barbara within, and
then laughed with her consummate impudence into both men's faces.

"G'lang wid ye's now," she flung at them, "an' quit disturbin' dacint
folks that likes to sleep o' nights!"

She slammed the door upon them.

They stood there a second or two, Wicker