e is up." Grudgingly Matilda made answer.
Somehow she resented the clean-limbed health of these men who made
their living in the wilderness. There was something almost
aggressive about it. Abruptly she braced herself to give utterance
to her thoughts. "Why can't you leave her here a little longer?
She doesn't want to go back."

"I think she must tell me that herself," Burke said.

He betrayed no discomfiture. She had never seen him discomfited.
That was part of her grievance against him.

"She won't do that," she said curtly. "She has old-fashioned ideas
about duty. But it doesn't make her like it any the better."

"It wouldn't," said Burke. A gleam that was in no way connected
with his smile shone for a moment in his steady eyes, but it passed
immediately. He continued to contemplate the faded woman before
him very gravely, without animosity. "You have got rather fond of
Sylvia, haven't you?" he said.

Matilda made an odd gesture that had in it something of vehemence.
"I am very sorry for her," she said bluntly.

"Yes?" said Burke.

"Yes." She repeated the word uncompromisingly, and closed her lips.

"You're not going to tell me why?" he suggested.

Her pale eyes grew suddenly hard and intensely bright. "Yes. I
should like to tell you," she said.

He got up with a quiet movement. "Well, why?" he said.

Her eyes flashed fire. "Because," she spoke very quickly, scarcely
pausing for breath, "you have turned her from a happy girl into a
miserable woman. I knew it would come. I saw it coming, I
knew--long before she did--that she had married the wrong man. And
I knew what she would suffer when she found out. She tried hard
not to find out; she did her best to blind herself. But she had to
face it at last. You forced her to open her eyes. And now--she
knows the truth. She will do her duty, because you are her husband
and there is no escape. But it will be bondage to her as long as
she lives. You have taken all the youth and the joy out of her
life."

There was a fierce ring of passion in the words. For once Matilda
Merston glowed with life. There was even something superb in her
reckless denunciation of the man before her.

He heard it without stirring a muscle, his eyes fixed unwaveringly
upon her, grim and cold as steel. When she ceased to speak, he
still stood motionless, almost as if he were waiting for something.

She also waited, girt for battle, eager for the fray. But h