e felt himself bound to
marry her.

"I will arrange something," she said. "I don't know what."

"What sort of thing?" he said. "Nothing foolish! Do look at things
dispassionately."

"I won't!" she said. Her face was upraised to the stars. "I won't
give you up to that dark-haired girl."

He swung round and spoke roughly. "Don't you know I can't be yours,
and you can't be mine?"

"And you want me not to be a dog in the manger, while you enjoy the
next best thing that comes along!"

"I never said so. Your mind jumps at conclusions. I hate such ideas
and conversation. I wish you would stop it."

"I will be worse than a dog in the manger," she said, "if you make love
to that girl in the desert."

"Hush!" Michael cried. His grasp of her wrist hurt her. "Hush! You
will make me hate you."

"No, you won't, Michael," she said, "because you have kissed me. Words
were made to hide our feelings, kisses to reveal them." She suddenly
paused and looked as sad and innocent as a corrected child. "I would
be a saint, if you would let yourself love me, Michael."

"What would be the good?" he said. "You belong to some one else."

"A nice sort of belonging!" she said, disconsolately. "He doesn't care
a scrap what becomes of me."

"Can't you possibly divorce him?" Michael did not mean that he would
marry her if she did; his mind was groping for some solution of the
problem.

Millicent Mervill remained silent. "I could let him divorce me," she
said at last.

"Don't!" Michael said intuitively. His voice amused the woman.

"I don't mean to," she said. "Why should any woman be divorced because
she lives the same life as her husband does when he is apart from her?"

"You don't, and aren't going to," Michael said earnestly.

"I would, Michael, with you--only with you."

"I wish you could have been friends with Miss Lampton instead of hating
her," he said sadly.

"Pouf!" Millicent Mervill cried. "Thanks for your Miss Lampton--I can
do without her friendship! I prefer hating her."

"You are so perverse and foolish and . . ." Michael paused ". . . and
difficult."

"No, loving, you mean, loving, Michael--that's all I'm difficult about."

CHAPTER VIII

They were back in the valley again and splendid work was going on at
the camp. Another two weeks' hard digging had done wonders, and
Margaret and Michael had found each other again.

In the dawn, two mornings after the dance, when the mysterio