That was why--in a spirit of testing a
granted boon to prove its genuineness--he asked with tentative
questioning:

"You won't be lonely? There are no people here."

She made the bride's answer and his contentment increased, for again it
was what he would have wished her to say. When he answered he spoke
almost sheepishly, with something of uneasy confession in his look:

"I'd like to live in places like this always. I feel choked and
stifled where there are walls shutting out the air and streets full of
people. Even in the Fort I felt like a trapped animal. I want to be
where there's room to move about and nobody bothering with different
kinds of ideas. It's only in the open, in places without men, that I'm
myself."

For the first time he had dared to give expression to the mood of the
wakeful night. Though it was dim in the busy brightness of the
present--a black spot on the luster of cheerful days--he dreaded that
it might come again with its scaring suggestions. With a nerve that
had never known a tremor at any menace from man, he was frightened of a
thought, a temporary mental state. In speaking thus to her, he
recognized her as a help-meet to whom he could make a shamed admission
of weakness and fear no condemnation or diminution of love. This time,
however, she made the wrong reply:

"But we'll go down to the coast after a while, if our claim's good and
we get enough dust out of it. I think of it often. It will be so nice
to live in a house again, and have some one to do the cooking, and wear
pretty clothes. It will be such fun living where there are people and
going about among them, going to parties and maybe having parties of
our own."

He withdrew his hand from hers and pushed the hair back from his
forehead. Though he said nothing she was conscious of a drop in his
mood. She bent forward to peer into his face and queried with bright,
observing eyes:

"You don't seem to like the thought of it."

"Oh, it's not me," he answered. "I was just wondering at the queer way
women talk. A few minutes ago you said you'd be content anywhere with
me. Now you say you think it would be such fun living in a city and
going to parties."

"With you, too," she laughed, pressing against his shoulder. "I don't
want to go to the parties alone."

"Well, I guess if you ever go it'll have to be alone," he said roughly.

She understood now that she had said something that annoyed him, and
not knowing