ids
curiously dark, and fringed with long lashes like a girl's.

"Are you asleep?" she asked.

"No," he answered without raising them. "Only tired."

She considered for a moment, then said:

"Have you ever told a lie?"

"A lie? I don't know. I guess so. Everybody tells lies sometime or
other."

"Not little lies. Serious ones, sinful ones, to people you love."

"No. I never told that kind. That's a pretty low-down thing to do."

"Mightn't a person do it--to--to--escape from something they didn't
want, something they suddenly--at that particular moment--dreaded and
shrank from?"

"Why couldn't they speak out, say they didn't want to do it? Why did
they have to lie?"

"Perhaps they didn't have time to think, and didn't want to hurt the
person who asked it. And--and--if they were willing to do the thing
later, sometime in the future, wouldn't that make up for it?"

"I can't tell. I don't know enough about it. I don't understand what
you mean." He turned, trying to make himself more comfortable. "Lord,
how hard this ground is! I believe it's solid iron underneath."

He stretched and curled on the blanket, elongating his body in a mighty
yawn which subsided into the solaced note of a groan. "There, that's
better. I ache all over to-night."

She made no answer, looking at the prospect from morose brows. More at
ease he returned to the subject and asked, "Who's been telling lies?"

"I," she answered.

He gave a short laugh, that drew from her a look of quick protest. He
was lying on his side, one arm crooked under his head, his eyes on her
in a languid glance where incredulity shone through amusement.

"Your father told me once you were the most truthful woman he'd ever
known, and I agree with him."

"It was to my father I lied," she answered.

She began to tremble, for part at least of the story was on her lips.
She clasped her shaking hands round her knees, and, not looking at him,
said "David," and then stopped, stifled by the difficulties and the
longing to speak.

David answered by laughing outright, a pleasant sound, not guiltless of
a suggestion of sleep, a laugh of good nature that refuses to abdicate.
It brushed her back into herself as if he had taken her by the
shoulders, pushed her into her prison, and slammed the door.

"That's all imagination," he said. "When some one we love dies we're
always thinking things like that--that we neglected them, or slighted
them, or told