hat he sat a
long time in silence. Well, she was gone! It had been a trying
afternoon, and he was glad to have it ended. And yet the room seemed
to be extraordinarily empty, as it had never been before his illness.
The stillness rather oppressed him. Damn it all, sickness did strange
things to a man! Took a lot out of him! He straightened himself in his
chair.

Presently Jim entered.

"Well, Jim!" said Haig. "Here we are again, eh? I'm hungry."

"You eat, she come back," Jim answered shrewdly.

Haig looked at him sharply, but the Chinaman's face was like a paper
mask.

"Shut up!" he cried savagely.

CHAPTER XVI

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Hillyer was waiting for her at the barn when she came at last, with a
smile that eased his anxiety, if only in an inconsiderable degree. But
he saw, as he took her handbag and bundle, and placed them in the
automobile, that she had been crying. This gladdened while it angered
him, and he was lost among the many interpretations that might be put
upon those signs of distress. Had she come to the end of her
infatuation? Had she been subjected to insults as the reward of her
service? He dared not ask her such questions--not yet; but he was
resolved (and there were material reasons, too, for that decision) to
have his own case settled, one way or another, at once.

Neither of them spoke more than a conventional word or two until
Hillyer, after full speed down Haig's road to the junction, slowed up
on the main highway along the Brightwater. It was the serenest of
summer evenings, very still and fragrant, with a touch of autumn in
the air. The eastern sky was filled with pale golds and pinks, and the
foothills were warm with purples. Marion's face was averted from
Hillyer, and her eyes were fixed, not on the soft alternations of
color in the sky, but on Thunder Mountain, where the only clouds to be
seen in all the expanse of blue lay low upon its uncompromising head.

"Marion!" said Hillyer, at length.

She did not miss the note in his voice that exposed his intention, but
long preparation for this moment enabled her to face him calmly.

"Yes, I know, Robert," she said. "You have much to say to me."

"I'm going to-morrow," he began abruptly. "Will you go with me?"

"To-morrow? Go with you?" she repeated, with a little start of
surprise.

"Yes. Will you go with me?"

"But I don't understand, Robert."

"I must be in Denver the day after to-morrow."

"I--I didn't kno