an measure, and giving of it without
begrudgment. David saw their anger and did not care. Fatigue made him
indifferent, ate into his pride, brought down his self-respect. He
plodded on doggedly, the alkali acrid on his lips and burning in his
eyeballs, thinking of California, not as the haven of love and dreams,
but as a place where there was coolness, water, and rest. When in the
dawn he staggered up to the call of "Catch up," and felt for the buckle
of his saddle girth, he had a vision of a place under trees by a river
where he could sleep and wake and turn to sleep again, and go on
repeating the performance all day with no one to shout at him if he was
stupid and forgot things.

Never having had the fine physical endowment of the others all the
fires of his being were dying down to smoldering ashes. His love for
Susan faded, if not from his heart, from his eyes and lips. She was as
dear to him as ever, but now with a devitalized, undemanding affection
in which there was something of a child's fretful dependence. He rode
beside her not looking at her, contented that she should be there, but
with the thought of marriage buried out of sight under the weight of
his weariness. It did not figure at all in his mind, which, when
roused from apathy, reached forward into the future to gloat upon the
dream of sleep. She was grateful for his silence, and they rode side
by side, detached from one another, moving in separated worlds of
sensation.

This evening he came across to where she sat, dragging a blanket in an
indolent hand. He dropped it beside her and threw himself upon it with
a sigh. He was too empty of thought to speak, and lay outstretched,
looking at the plain where dusk gathered in shadowless softness. In
contrast with his, her state was one of inner tension, strained to the
breaking point. Torturings of conscience, fears of herself, the
unaccustomed bitterness of condemnation, melted her, and she was ripe
for confession. A few understanding words and she would have poured
her trouble out to him, less in hope of sympathy than in a craving for
relief. The widening gulf would have been bridged and he would have
gained the closest hold upon her he had yet had. But if she were more
a woman than ever before, dependent, asking for aid, he was less a man,
wanting himself to rest on her and have his discomforts made bearable
by her consolations.

She looked at him tentatively. His eyes were closed, the l