ng--very compelling. Besides, I reflected, a trip like that
might help to straighten Whitney up a little. I hadn't much hope, to be
sure, but drowning men clutch at straws. It's curious what sophistry you
use to convince yourself, isn't it? And then--something happened that
for two weeks occupied all my mind."

Hardy paused, considered for a moment the glowing end of his cigarette,
and finally looked up gravely; there was a slight hesitation, almost
an embarrassment, in his manner. "I don't exactly know how to put it,"
he began. "I don't want you chaps to imagine anything wrong; it was
all very nebulous and indefinite, you understand--Mrs. Whitney was a
wonderful woman. I wouldn't mention the matter at all if it wasn't
necessary for the point of my story; in fact, it is the point of my
story. But there was a man there--one of the young engineers--and
quite suddenly I discovered that he was in love with Mrs. Whitney,
and I think--I never could be quite sure, but I think she was in love
with him. It must have been one of those sudden things, a storm out
of a clear sky, deluging two people before they were aware. I imagine it
was brought to the surface by the chap's illness. He had been out riding
on the desert and had got off to look at something, and a rattlesnake
had struck him--a big, dust-dirty thing--on the wrist, and, very faint,
he had galloped back to the Whitneys'. And what do you suppose she had
done--Mrs. Whitney, that is? Flung herself down on him and sucked the
wound! Yes, without a moment's hesitation, her gold hair all about his
hand and her white dress in the dirt. Of course, it was a foolish thing
to do, and not in the least the right way to treat a wound, but she had
risked her life to do it; a slight cut on her lip--you understand; a
tiny, ragged place. Afterward, she had cut the wound crosswise, so, and
had put on a ligature, and then had got the man into the house some way
and nursed him until he was quite himself again. I dare say he had been
in love with her a long while without knowing it, but that clinched
matters. Those things come overpoweringly and take a man, down in places
like that--semitropical and lonely and lawless, with long, empty days
and moonlit nights. Perhaps he told Mrs. Whitney; he never got very far,
I am sure. She was a wonderful woman--but she loved him, I think. You
can tell those things, you know; a gesture, an unavoidable look, a
silence.

"Anyway, I saw what had happened a