a steep but fairly safe incline. The platform or cliff was fenced off
by a low barricade of fallen trees, scarcely noticeable from the valley
below. The wife's eyes had often wandered to the spot with a strange
fascination, as now. Her husband looked at her meditatively. He nodded
slightly, as though to himself. She looked up. Their understanding of
each other's thoughts was singular.

"Tom," she said, "I will ride the chestnut, Bowline, to that fence some
day. It will be a big steeplechase." He winced, but answered slowly.
"You have meant to say that for a long time past. I am glad it has been
said at last."

She was struck by the perfect quietness of his tone. Her eyes sought his
face and rested for a moment, half bewildered, half pitying.

"Yes, it has been in my mind often--often," she said. "It's a horrible
thought," he gravely replied; "but it is better to be frank. Still,
you'll never do it, Alice--you'll never dare to do it."

"Dare, dare," she answered, springing to her feet, and a shuddering sigh
broke from her. "The thing itself is easy enough, Tom."

"And why haven't you done it?" he asked in a hard voice, but still
calmly.

She leaned one hand upon the table, the other lay at her cheek, and her
head bent forward at him. "Because," she answered, "because I have tried
to be thoughtful for you."

"Oh, as to that," he said--"as to that!" and he shrugged his shoulders
slightly.

"You don't care a straw," she said sharply, "you never did."

He looked up suddenly at her, a great bitterness in his face, and
laughed strangely, as he answered: "Care! Good God! Care!... What's the
use of caring? It's been all a mistake; all wrong."

"That is no news," she said wearily. "You discovered that long ago."

He looked out of the door across the warm fields again; he lifted his
eyes to that mountain road; he looked down at her. "I haven't any hope
left now, Alice. Let's be plain with each other. We've always been
plain, but let us be plainer still. There are those rice fields out
there, that banana plantation, and the sugar-cane stretching back as far
as the valley goes--it's all mine, all mine. I worked hard for it. I
had only one wish with it all, one hope through it all, and it was,
that when I brought you here as my wife, you would come to love me--some
time. Well, I've waited, and waited. It hasn't come. We're as far apart
to-day as we were the day I married you. Farther, for I had hope then,
but I've no hop