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The girl paused and peered down into the canyon inquiringly.

“Do you think of leaping?” asked Palmerston.

She smiled seriously, still looking down. “No; I was wondering if the rainfall had been as light in the mountains as it has been in the valley, and how the water-supply will hold out through the summer if we have no more.”

Palmerston laughed. “Do you always think of practical things?” he asked.

She turned and confronted him with a half-defiant, half-whimsical smile.

“I do not think much about what I think,” she said; “I am too busy thinking.”

As she spoke she took a step backward and tripped upon some obstacle in the path.

Palmerston sprang forward and caught her upraised arm with both hands.

“I–I–love you!” he said eagerly, tightening his grasp, and then loosening it, and falling back with the startled air of one who hears a voice when he thinks himself alone.

The young woman let her arm fall at her side, and stood still an instant, looking at him with untranslatable eyes.

“You love me?” she repeated with slow questioning. “How can you?”

Palmerston smiled rather miserably. “Far more easily than I can explain why I have told you,” he answered.

“If it is true, why should you not tell me?” she asked, still looking at him steadily.

Evasion seemed a drapery of lies before her gaze. Palmerston spoke the naked truth:

“Because I cannot ask you to love me in return–because I have promised to marry another woman, and I must keep my promise.”

He made the last avowal with the bitter triumph of one who chooses death where he might easily have chosen dishonor.

His listener turned away a little, and looked through the green haze of the canyon at the snow of San Antonio.

“You say that you love me, and yet you intend to marry this other girl, who loves you, and live a lie?” she asked without looking at him.

“My God! but you make it hard!” groaned Palmerston.

She faced about haughtily.

“I make it hard!” she exclaimed. “I have been afraid of you–not for myself, but for–for others, about something in which one might be mistaken. And you come to me and tell me this! You would cheat a woman out of her life, a girl who loves you–who promised to marry you because you told her you loved her; who no doubt learned to love you because of your love for her. And this is what men call honor! Do you know what I intend to do? I intend to write to this girl and tell her what you have told me. Then she may marry you if she wishes. But she shall know. You shall not feed her on husks all her life, if I can help it. And because I intend to do this, even if–even if I loved you, I could never see you again!”

Palmerston knew that he stood aside to let her pass and walk rapidly out of the canyon.

The call of insects and the twitter of linnets seemed to deepen into a roar. A faint “halloo” came from far up the mountain-side, and in the distance men’s voices rang across the canyon.

A workman came running down the path, almost stumbling over Palmerston in his haste.

“Where’s the old man–where’s Dysart?” he panted, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. “We’ve struck a flow that’s washing us into the middle of next week. The old professor made a blamed good guess this time, sure.”