uches deep chords of sorrow in the most secret
realms of the spirit. The rain song grew and fell as the gusts of the
wind swept it, and the rock walls of the cliff swam in clouds of spray.

The storm could not help but bring Ben to camp, she thought. At least
she did not fear that he would lose his way: he knew every trail and
ridge for miles around the cave. Even such pressing, baleful darkness as
this could not bewilder him. She went back to her cot to wait his
coming.

The minutes seemed interminable. Time had never moved so slowly before.
She tried to lie still, to relax; then to direct her thought in other
channels; but all of these meandering streams flowed back into the main
current which was Ben. Yet it was folly to worry about him; any moment
she would hear his step at the edge of the forest. But the night was so
dark, and the storm so wild. A half-hour dragged its interminable length
away.

Her uneasiness was swiftly developing into panic. Just to-day she was
willing to risk his life for her freedom: it was certainly folly now to
goad herself to despair by dwelling on his mysterious absence. It might
speed the passing minutes if she got up and found some work to do about
the cave; but she simply had no heart for it. Once she sat up, only to
lie down again.

The moments dragged by. Surely he would have had time to reach camp by
now. The storm neither increased nor decreased; only played its mournful
melodies in the forest. The song of the rain was despairing,--low
mournful notes rising to a sharp crescendo as the fiercer gusts swept it
into the tree tops. The limbs murmured unhappily as they smote together;
and a tall tree, swaying in the wind, creaked with a maddening
regularity. She was never so lonely before, so darkly miserable.

"I want him to come," her voice suddenly spoke aloud. It rang strangely
in the gloomy cave. "I want him to come back to me."

She felt no impulse for the words. They seemed to speak themselves.
Presently she sat erect, her heart leaping with inexpressible relief, at
the sound of a heavy tread at the edge of the glade.

The steps came nearer, and then paused. She sprang to her feet and went
to the mouth of the cave. A silence that lived between the beating rain
and the complaining wind settled down about her. Her eyes could not
pierce the darkness.

"Is that you, Ben?" she called.

She strained into the silence for his reply. The cold drops splashed
into her face.

"Ben