anything. You know that."

"He that ought to be out in the desert there looking for water's lying
asleep under a blanket. That's your man."

He did not move or divert his gaze. There was something singularly
sinister in the fixed and gleaming look and the rigidity of his
watching face. She plucked at a weed, saw her hand's trembling and to
hide it struck her palms together shaking off the dust. The sound
filled the silent place. To her ears it was hardly louder than the
terrified beating of her heart.

"That's the man you've chosen," he went on. "A feller that gives out
when the road's hard, who hasn't enough backbone to stand a few days'
heat and thirst. A poor, useless rag."

He spoke in a low voice, very slowly, each word dropping distinct and
separate. His lowering expression, his steady gaze, his deliberate
speech, spoke of mental forces in abeyance. It was another man, not
the Courant she knew.

She tried to quell her tremors by simulating indignation. If her
breathing shook her breast into an agitation he could see, the look she
kept on him was bold and defiant.

"Don't speak of him that way," she cried scrambling to her feet. "Keep
what you think to yourself."

"And what do _you_ think?" he said and moved forward toward her.

She made no answer, and it was very silent in the cleft. As he came
nearer the grasses crackling under his soft tread were the only sound.
She saw that his face was pale under the tan, the nostrils slightly
dilated. Stepping with a careful lightness, his movements suggested a
carefully maintained adjustment, a being quivering in a breathless
balance. She backed away till she stood pressed against the rock. She
felt her thoughts scattering and made an effort to hold them as though
grasping at tangible, escaping things.

He stopped close to her, and neither spoke for a moment, eye hard on
eye, then hers shifted and dropped.

"You think about him as I do," said the man.

"No," she answered, "no," but her voice showed uncertainty.

"Why don't you tell the truth? Why do you lie?"

"No," this time the word was hardly audible, and she tried to impress
it by shaking her head.

He made a step toward her and seized one of her hands. She tried to
tear it away and flattened herself against the rock, panting, her face
gone white as the alkaline patches of the desert.

"You don't love him. You never did."

She shook her head again, gasping. "Let me out of here. Le