, but something happened. They say it was a cave-in, a
slide--something like that. The train cannot go on until to-morrow."

"And you are to stay with the Ottos?"

She nodded.

Quick as a flash she had seemed to read his thoughts.

"I am sorry," she added, before he could speak. "I can see that I have
annoyed you. I have literally projected myself into your work, and I am
afraid that I have caused you trouble. Mrs. Otto has told me of this man
they call Quade. She says he is dangerous. And I have made him your enemy."

"I am, not afraid of Quade. The incident was nothing more than an agreeable
interruption to what was becoming a rather monotonous existence up here. I
have always believed, you know, that a certain amount of physical
excitement is good oil for our mental machinery. That, perhaps, was why you
caught me hauling at His Coltship's ear."

He had spoken stiffly. There was a hard note in his voice, a suggestion of
something that was displeasing in his forced laugh. He knew that in these
moments he was fighting against his inner self--against his desire to tell
her how glad he was that something had held back the Tete Jaune train, and
how wonderful her hair looked in the afternoon sun. He was struggling to
keep himself behind the barriers he had built up and so long maintained in
his writings. And yet, as he looked, he felt something crumbling into
ruins. He knew that he had hurt her. The hardness of his words, the
coldness of his smile, his apparently utter indifference to her had sent
something that was almost like a quick, physical pain into her eyes. He
drew a step nearer, so that he caught the soft contour of her cheek. Joanne
Gray heard him, and lowered her head slightly, so that he could not see.
She was a moment too late. On her cheek Aldous saw a single creeping
drop--a tear.

In an instant he was at her side. With a quick movement she brushed the
tear away before she faced him.

"I've hurt you," he said, looking her straight in the eyes. "I've hurt you,
and God knows I'm a brute for doing it. I've treated you as badly as
Quade--only in a different way. I know how I've made you feel--that you've
been a nuisance, and have got me into trouble, and that I don't want to
have anything more to do with you. Have I made you feel that?"

"I am afraid--you have."

He reached out a hand, and almost involuntarily her own came to it. She saw
the change in his face, regret, pain, and then that slow-coming, w