t that he'd knocked you down, and I was
perfectly furious----"

She gave a little sob of excitement, laughed unsteadily, and sat down on
a fallen log, burying her face in her hands.

They knew enough to let her alone and pretend not to notice her.
Geraldine chattered away cheerfully to the two men while the keepers
drew the game. Delancy tried to listen to her, but his anxious eyes kept
turning toward Rosalie, and at length, unable to endure it, he went over
and sat down beside her, careless of what others might infer.

"How funny," whispered Geraldine to Duane. "I had no idea that Delancy
was so fond of her. Had you?"

He started slightly. "I? Oh, no," he said hastily--too hastily. He was a
very poor actor.

Gravely, head bent, she walked forward beside him after Grandcourt had
announced that he and Rosalie had had enough and that they wished Kemp
to take them and their game to the sleigh.

Once, looking back, she saw the procession moving in the opposite
direction through the woods, Kemp leading, rope over his shoulder,
dragging the dead boar across the snow; Grandcourt, both rifles slung
across his back, big arm supporting Rosalie, who walked as though very
tired, her bright head drooping, her arm resting on his shoulder.

Geraldine looked up at Duane thoughtfully, and he supposed that she was
about to speak, but her gaze became remote; she shifted her rifle, and
walked on.

Before they came to the wild, shaggy country below Cloudy Mountain she
said:

"I've been thinking it over, Duane. I can see in it nothing that can
concern anybody except themselves. Can you?"

"Not a thing, dear.... I'm sorry I suggested his coming. I knew about
this, but I clean forgot it when I asked you to invite him."

"I remember, now, your consternation when you realised it," she said,
smiling. "After all, Duane, if it is bound to happen, I don't mind it
happening here.... Poor, lonely little Rosalie!... I'm depraved enough
to be glad for her--if it is really to be so."

"I'm glad, too.... Only she ought to begin her action, I think. It's
more prudent and better taste."

"You said once that you had a contempt for divorce."

"I never entertain the same opinion of anything two days in succession,"
he said, smiling. "When there is any one moral law that can justly cover
every case which it is framed to govern, I'll be glad to remain more
constant in my beliefs."

"Then you _do_ believe in divorce?"

"To-day I happen to."