er the canyon chasm. The shadow of the huge derrick-boom swept around
and across them, and she shuddered as if the intangible thing had been
an icy finger to touch her.

"You must help me," she pleaded. "I cannot see the way a single step
ahead."

"And I am in still deeper darkness," he reminded her gently. "You forget
that I do not know what threatens you, or how it threatens."

"I can't tell you; I can't tell any one," she said; and he made sure
there was a sob at the catching of her breath.

As once before, he grew suddenly masterful.

"You are wronging yourself and me, Elsa, dear. You forget that your
trouble is mine; that in the end we two shall be one in spite of all the
obstacles that a crazy fate can invent."

She shook her head. "I told you once that you must not forget yourself
again; and you are forgetting. There is one obstacle which can never be
overcome this side of the grave. You must always remember that."

"I remember only that I love you," he dared; adding: "And you are afraid
to tell me what this obstacle is. You know it would vanish in the
telling."

She did not answer.

"You won't tell me that you are in love with Wingfield?" he persisted.

Still no reply.

"Elsa, dearest, can you look me in the eyes and tell me that you do not
love _me_?"

She neither looked nor denied.

"Then that is all I need to know at present," he went on doggedly. "I
shall absolutely and positively refuse to recognise any other obstacle."

She broke silence so swiftly that the words seemed to leap to her lips.

"There is one, dear friend," she said, with a warm upflash of strong
emotion; "one that neither you nor I, nor any one can overcome!" She
pointed down at the boulder-riven flood churning itself into spray in
the canyon pot at their feet. "I will measure it for you--and for
myself, God help us! Rather than be your wife--the mother of your
children--I should gladly, joyfully, fling myself into that."

The motion he made to catch her, to draw her back from the brink of the
chasm, was purely mechanical, but it served to break the strain of a
situation that had become suddenly impossible.

"That was almost tragic, wasn't it?" she asked, with a swift retreat
behind the barricades of mockery. "In another minute we should have
tumbled headlong into melodrama, with poor Mr. Wingfield hopelessly out
of reach for the note-taking process."

"Then you didn't mean what you were saying?" he demanded, trying hard