r
hands clasped round her knees, about which the blanket draped blackly.

"I was thinking, too," she said.

"Of what?"

"Of what that man was saying of David."

There was a silence. He lay motionless, his trouble coming back upon
him. He wished that he might dare to impose upon her a silence on that
one subject. David, given a place in her mind, would sit at every
feast, walk beside them, lie between them in their marriage bed.

"Why do you think of him?" he asked.

"Because--" her tone showed surprise. "It's natural, isn't it? Don't
you? I'm sure you do. I do often, much oftener than you think. I'm
always hoping that he'll come."

"You never loved him," he said, in a voice from which all spring was
gone.

"No, but he was my friend, and I would like to keep him so for always.
I think of his kindness, his gentleness, all the good part of him
before the trail broke him down. And, I think, too, how cruel I was to
him."

The darkness hid her face, but her voice told that she, too, had her
little load of guilt where David was concerned.

The man moved uneasily.

"That's foolishness. You only told the truth. If it was cruel, that's
not your affair."

"He loved me. A woman doesn't forget that."

"That's over and done with. He's probably here somewhere, come through
with a train that's scattered. And, anyway, you can't do any good by
thinking about him."

This time the false reassurances came with the pang that the dead man
was rousing in tardy retribution.

"I should like to know it," she said wistfully, "to feel sure. It's
the only thing that mars our happiness. If I knew he was safe and well
somewhere there'd be nothing in the world for me but perfect joy."

Her egotism of satisfied body and spirit jarred upon him. The passion
she had evoked had found no peace in its fulfillment. She had got what
he had hoped for. All that he had anticipated was destroyed by the
unexpected intrusion of a part of himself that had lain dead till she
had quickened it, and quickening it she had killed his joy. In a flash
of divination he saw that, if she persisted in her worry over David,
she would rouse in him an antagonism that would eventually drive him
from her. He spoke with irritation:

"Put him out of your mind. Don't worry about him. You can't do any
good, and it spoils our love."

After a pause, she said with a hesitating attempt at cajolery:

"Let me and Daddy John drive into the valley