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“We quarreled,” he said, “in the orthodox way,–about a woman.”

“Indeed!” said Daphne. “Then you must pardon me.”

“And her name,” he continued calmly.

“I did not ask you her name.”

“Still, since we have gone so far”–

“There is no need of our going any farther.”

“We may as well,–a little farther. We quarreled, strangely enough, about you,–the first time he ever spoke of you. He would not have spoken then, I think, but he was a little excited, as well he might have been. Excuse me?” He waited.

“Nothing!” said Daphne. She had made an involuntary protesting sound.

“He said he hoped to bring you back with him. I asked how long since he had seen you; and when he told me five years, I remarked that he had better not be too sure. ‘But you don’t know her,’ he said; ‘she is truth itself, and courage. By as many times as she has refused to listen to me, I am sure of her now.’ I did not gather somehow that you were–engaged to him, else I hope I should not have gone so far. As it was, I kept on persisting–like a cynic who has no one of his own to be sure of–that he had better not be too sure! He might have seen, I thought then, that it was half chaff and half envy with me; but it was a nervous time, and I was less than sympathetic, less than a friend to him. And now I am loaded with friendship’s honors, and you have come yourself to prove me in the wrong. You punish me by converting me to the truth.”

“What truth?” asked Daphne, so low that Thane had to guess her question.

“Have you not proved to me that some women do have memories?”

Daphne could not meet his eyes; but she suspected him of something like sarcasm. She could not be sure, for his tone was agitating in its tenderness.

“All things considered,” she said slowly, “does it not strike you as rather a costly conversion?”

“I don’t say I was worth it, nor do I see just how it benefits me personally to have learned my lesson.”

He rose, and stood where he could look at her,–an unfair advantage, for his dark face, strong in its immobility, was in silhouette against the flush of twilight which illumined hers, so transparent in its sensitiveness.

“Is it not a good thing to believe, on any terms?” she tried to answer lightly.

“For some persons, perhaps. But my hopes, if I had any, would lie in the direction of disbelief.”

“Disbelief?” she repeated confusedly. His keen eyes beat hers down.

“In woman’s memory, constancy,–her constancy in youth, say? I am not talking of seasoned timber. I don’t deserve to be happy, you see, and I look for no more than my deserts.”

If he were mocking her now, only to test her! And if she should answer with a humble, blissful disclaimer? But she answered nothing, disclaimed nothing; suffered his suspicion,–his contempt, perhaps, for she felt that he read her through and through.

A widow is well, and a maid is well; but a maiden widow who trembles and looks down–in God’s creation, what is she?

* * * * *

On the north side of the Snake, after climbing out of the canon at Decker’s Ferry, the cross-roads branch as per sign-post: “Thirty miles to Shoshone Falls, one mile to Decker’s Ferry. Good road.” This last assertion must be true, as we have it on no less authority than that of Decker himself. Nothing is said of the road to Bliss,–not even that there is such a Bliss only sixteen miles away. Being a station on the Oregon Short Line, Bliss can take care of itself.

At these cross-roads, on a bright, windy September morning, our travelers had halted for reasons, the chief of which was to say good-by. They had slept over night at the ferry, parted their baggage in the morning, and now in separate wagons by divergent roads were setting forth on the last stage of their journey.