nd slightly resembling her own
discoveries in that dog-eared science.

So it was, when she was most eloquent, most earnestly inspired--nay in
the very middle of a plea for sweetness and light and simple living,
that his reasonings found voice in the material comment:

"I never imagined you were engaged!"

"Is that what you have been thinking about?" she asked, innocently
astonished.

"Yes. Why not? I never for one instant supposed--"

"But, Mr. Siward, why should you have concerned yourself with supposing
anything? Why indulge in any speculation of that sort about me?"

"I don't know, but I didn't," he said.

"Of course you didn't; you'd known me for about three hours--there on
the cliff--"

"But--Quarrier--!"

Over his youthful face a sullen shadow had fallen--flickering, not yet
settled. He would not for anything on earth have talked freely to the
woman destined to be Quarrier's wife. He had talked too much anyway.
Something in her, something about her had loosened his tongue. He had
made a plain ass of himself--that was all,--a garrulous ass. And truly
it seemed that the girl beside him, even in the starlight, could follow
and divine what he had scarcely expressed to himself; or her instincts
had taken a shorter cut to forestall his own conclusion.

"Don't think the things you are thinking!" she said in a fierce little
voice, leaning toward him.

"What do you mean?" he asked, taken aback.

"You know! Don't! It is unfair--it is--is faithless--to me. I am your
friend; why not? Does it make any difference to you whom I marry? Cannot
two people remain in accord anyway? Their friendship concerns each other
and--nobody else!" She was letting herself go now; she was conscious of
it, conscious that impulse and emotion were the currents unloosed
and hurrying her onward. And with it all came exhilaration, a faint
intoxication, a delicate delight in daring to let go all and trust to
impulse and emotions.

"Why should you feel hurt because for a moment you let me see--gave me
a glimpse of yourself--of life's battle as you foresee it? What if
there is always a reaction from all confidences exchanged? What if that
miserable French cynic did say that never was he more alone than after
confessing to a friend? He died crazy anyhow. Is not a rare moment of
confidence worth the reaction--the subsidence into the armored shell of
self? Tell me truly, Mr. Siward, isn't it?"

Breathless, confused, exhilarated by her own r