old her, he hadn't been there for days. They crossed the road
and began the ascent into the woods.

"So you don't know whether she's been there?" Nan asked. She stopped to
breathe in the wood fragrances, coming now like a surprise. She had
almost forgotten "outdoors."

"Yes," said Raven. "I know. Sometimes I fancy she won't need to go there
again. Tenney's a wreck. He sits there in the kitchen and doesn't speak.
He isn't thinking about her. He's thinking of himself."

"How do you know? You haven't been over?"

"Yes, I went over the morning after the shooting. I intended to tell
Tira to get her things on and come down to the house. But when I saw
him--saw them--I couldn't."

"You were sorry for him?" Nan prompted.

They had reached the hut, and Raven took out the key from under the
stone. Close by, there was a velvet fern frond ready to unfurl. He
unlocked the door and they went in. Her last question he did not answer
until he had thrown up windows and brought out chairs to the veranda at
the west. When they were seated, he went on probing for his past
impression and speaking thoughtfully.

"No, I don't know that I was particularly sorry for him. But somehow the
two of them there together, with that poor little devil between
them--well, it seemed to me I couldn't separate them. That's marriage, I
suppose. Anyhow it looked to me like it: something you couldn't undo
because they wouldn't have it undone."

Nan turned on him her old impetuous look.

"You simpleton!" she had it on her tongue to say. "She doesn't want it
undone because anybody that lifts a finger will get you--not her--deeper
into the mire." But she did say: "I don't believe you can even guess
what she wants, chiefly because she doesn't want anything for herself.
But if you didn't ask her to leave him, what did you do?"

"I told him to hold himself ready for arrest."

"You're a funny child," commented Nan. "You warn the criminal and give
him a chance to skip."

"Yes," said Raven unsmilingly. "I hoped he would. I thought I was giving
her one more chance. If he did skip, so much the better for her."

"How did she look?" asked Nan, and then added, tormenting herself,
"Beautiful?"

"Yes, beautiful. Not like an angel, as we've seen her. Like a saint:
haggard, with hungry eyes. I suppose the saints hunger, don't you? And
thirst." He was looking off through the tree boles and Nan, also
looking, found the distance dim and felt the sorrow of youth and