Now she
breathed a long, trembling sigh of relief and turned to Ewing.

"You see, he has nothing to say. Let us go."

He opened the door for her and closed it after them without looking
again at Teevan.

"There's a reason why I can't do it for you now," he said, as they went
down the stairs. She wondered what he could mean, but was too little
alive to ask. When they reached the street she became at once interested
in a belated laborer going home with a loosely tied bundle over his
shoulder, odds and ends of small boards, refuse from some building. He
whistled in a tired way as he trudged on, not looking at them. She felt
pleased at the thought that his wife was going to have wood with which
to cook the poor fellow's supper. The dark was fast gathering, but
children still romped in the street. An elderly stout man passed, his
hat off, wielding a palm-leaf fan. She was surprised at this, for the
outer air had fallen on her with icy clutch, making her draw the scarf
more closely about her.

Ewing would have left her at her door, but she urged him to go in. She
took him to sit in the unlighted library, and there, when he could no
longer see her face, he was astounded to hear her talk of her girlhood,
her schooldays, of the few people they knew in common, of Piersoll's new
book, of her brother's ranch life; of a score of little gossipy matters
that would occur to the untroubled mind in a twilight chat. But when he
rose to go after a little time, she was in an instant wild panic of
protest, seizing one of his hands with a convulsive grip. He covered her
poor hand with his own and regarded her with pity. She lifted her face
to him with a sudden wild entreaty for shelter. "Oh, stay with
me--stay--stay--and comfort me. I am so ill, and I--I would comfort
you." He soothed her as best he could, protesting that he would stay,
and in a few moments she was talking cheerfully of Kensington and of
Virginia. She tried to amuse him with tales of Virginia's childhood--how
she had been such a droll and merry little creature. She still retained
his hand, gripping it with an intensity through which he could feel the
quivering of her whole body.

Only once did she refer to Teevan. "Please don't see him again," she
urged. "Promise me, promise never to let him tell you--anything. Please,
please promise that!"

Believing she pleaded for herself, he felt that old longing to lift her
in his arms and show her there without words how little s