will cook supper for
you, and when you have had a night's sleep, we will start home."

"But first," he said, as he rose to his feet and stood before her, "I must
tell you something. I should have told you before, but I was waiting until
I thought you were ready to hear. I wonder if you know. I wonder if you
are ready to hear, now."

She looked him frankly in the eyes as she answered, "Yes, I know what you
want to tell me. But don't, don't tell me here." She shuddered, and the
man remembering the dead body that lay at the foot of the cliff,
understood. "Wait," she said, "until we are home."

"And you will come to me when you are ready? When you want me to tell
you?" he said.

"Yes," she answered softly, "I will go to you when I am ready."

* * * * *

At the cabin in the gulch, the girl hastened to prepare a substantial
meal. There was no one, now, to fear that the smoke would be seen. Later,
with cedar boughs and blankets, she made a bed for him on the floor near
the fire-place. When he would have helped her she forbade him; saying that
he was her guest and that he must rest to be ready for the homeward trip.

Softly, the day slipped away over the mountain peaks and ridges that shut
them in. Softly, the darkness of the night settled down. In the rude
little hut, in the lonely gulch, the man and the woman whose lives were
flowing together as two converging streams, sat by the fire, where, the
night before, the convict had told that girl his story.

Very early, Sibyl insisted that her companion lie down to sleep upon the
bed she had made. When he protested, she answered, laughing, "Very well,
then, but you will be obliged to sit up alone," and, with a "Good night,"
she retired to her own bed in another corner of the cabin. Once or twice,
he spoke to her, but when she did not answer he lay down upon his woodland
couch and in a few minutes was fast asleep.

In the dim light of the embers, the girl slipped from her bed and stole
quietly across the room to the fire-place, to lay another stick of wood
upon the glowing coals. A moment she stood, in the ruddy light, looking
toward the sleeping man. Then, without a sound, she stole to his side, and
kneeling, softly touched his forehead with her lips. As silently, she
crept back to her couch.

* * * * *

All that afternoon Brian Oakley had been following with trained eyes, the
faintly marked trail of the man