It followed so neatly on the handkerchief and the
footmarks. But now he has come back, and it changes everything. So I can
tell you."

He couldn't be sure whether it was the cold, white loneliness through
which they paced, or what he had just said that made her tremble.

"Perhaps I shouldn't have told you that."

"I am glad," she answered. "You must never close your confidence to me
again. Why have you done it these last few months? I want to know."

Calculation died.

"Then you shall know."

Through the white night his hands reached for her, found her, drew her
close. The moment was too masterful for him to mould. He became, instead,
plastic in its white and stealthy grasp.

"I couldn't stay," he said, "and see you give yourself to Hartley."

She raised her hands to his shoulders. He barely caught her whisper
because of the sly communicativeness of the snow.

"I am glad, but why didn't you say so then?"

The intoxication faded. The enterprise ahead gave to their joy a fugitive
quality. Moreover, with her very surrender came to him a great misgiving.

"But you and Hartley? I've watched. It's been forced on me."

"Then you have misunderstood," she answered. "You put me too completely
out of your life after our quarrel. That was about Hartley. You were too
jealous, but it was my fault."

"Hartley," he asked, "spoke to you about that time?"

"Yes, and I told him he was a very dear friend, and he was kind enough to
accept that and not to go away."

His measure of the widening of the rift between them made her more
precious because of its affectionate human quality. She had been kinder
to Graham, more mysterious about him, to draw Bobby back. Yet ever since
his arrival at the Cedars, Graham had assumed toward Katherine an
attitude scarcely to be limited by friendship. He had done what he had
in Bobby's service clearly enough for her sake. For a long time past,
indeed, in speaking of her Graham always seemed to discuss the woman he
expected to marry.

"You are quite sure," he asked, puzzled, "that Hartley understood?"

"Why do you ask? He has shown how good a friend he is."

"He has always made me think," Bobby said, "that he had your love. You're
sure he guessed that you cared for me?"

In that place, at that moment, there was a tragic colour to her coquetry.

"I think every one must have guessed it except you, Bobby."

He raised her head and touched her lips. Her lips were as cold as the
caresses o