ould have--" He hesitated.

"Yes."

There ensued a silence that fell like a mist between them, through
which neither knew the way. She saw that he had begun, by ever so
little, to understand; and she feared to say more lest a wrong word
should overtake a right one. As for Haig, his incredulity persisted
notwithstanding the unquestionable sincerity of her speech. He did not
doubt that she contemplated, in this moment of emotion, the complete
and final sacrifice. But he was quite convinced that she would take a
different view of the situation when the test should come. She did not
yet appreciate, he argued, the peril of their position; she had not
realized the hazard of her adventure or she never would have
undertaken it; and undoubtedly she still thought there would be a way
out for them. Under such a delusion it was easy for her, he concluded,
to talk about dying with him. But she was tragically in error. His
eyes lifted to the cliff. She should have been up there on her return
hours ago. Now it was too late again; for the clouds were black and
ugly on the summit, and a distant roaring came to his ears; and he
knew what was happening or in preparation in the middle of the flat.
But he must find a way to send her up that trail at dawn the next day;
and his gaze dropped to where the revolver lay just visible in the
thin grass into which she had thrown it.

CHAPTER XXV

DIANA

Still no speech came to either of them. After a while Marion rose
silently, and went about her work. First, however, she sought the
revolver in the grass, and carried it, with her rifle, to the clump of
willows by the brook, where both weapons were safely beyond the
present limits of Philip's powers. Then she returned to him with her
towel, one end of it wetted and soaped.

"May I, please?" she asked, smiling down at him.

"If you wish," he answered.

She knelt, and began to wash the grime from his face, to cleanse the
wound on his head, and readjust the bandage. Then his hands, after
another trip to the stream to rub out the soiled end of the towel; and
she was still busy with one of them, when she started back with a cry.
His coat had opened wider, and she saw that his shirt was stained with
blood. She had forgotten the revolver-shot!

"It's nothing," said Haig. "Only a flesh wound, I think."

"But why didn't you tell me!" she cried, almost with anger in her
alarm.

"It doesn't matter, does it?"

"Let me see it, quick!" she