You are absurdly unselfish, Pete!" She moved a chip along the ground
with her foot, but Pete failed to notice this curious seeing gesture.

"Why? What do you mean?"

She waited, waited until, in the sickness of his vague suspense, his
hands had turned cold and the color had sucked itself in irregular
heartbeats from his lips.

At last she spoke deliberately. "You would lay down your life for your
friend?" she said. It was almost a whisper.

Pete's face went red and white and red again. Through the tumult of his
heart he searched for loyal words.

"I love Hugh--if that's what you mean," he said.

"I love you?" she repeated softly, perversely. "Did you say 'Hugh' or
'you,' Pete?"

His face tightened; faint lines came about his mouth. "I said 'Hugh!'"

"Ah--you love only him--nobody else in all the world?"

Her young and wistful voice came to him like a fragrance. He struggled
as though his spirit were fighting in deep water. He tried to remember
Hugh. He rose up slowly to meet this passionate moment, and now he made
a short step toward the waiting girl. She _was_ waiting, breathing fast.
Pete's arms quivered at his sides.

A hand gripped the quivering muscles and turned him about. Hugh had come
up behind, without sound, on moccasined feet. His face was gray; his
eyes were drawn into slits; his distorted mouth was trying to become a
straight, hard line. The effort gave a twitch to the pale, lower lip.

Sylvie stood up, singing as though in absent-minded idleness, and
vanished into the house. It would have been difficult to tell whether or
not she had heard Hugh's arrival.

"What's the matter?" Pete stammered like a boy wakened from a dream to
behold a lifted cane. "Let go my arm, Hugh. Your fingers cut."

"Come away from the house," said Hugh coldly, tightening the iron grip
as though Pete's wincing gave him satisfaction. "Come up here by the
pines. I want to talk to you."

"I'll come," said Pete. "Let go my arm."

There was that in his voice that compelled obedience. Hugh's hand fell
and knotted into a fist. Pete walked beside him up the abrupt slope of
their hollow to the little hill above the river. Its noise was loud in
the still, sunny air. There was no wind stirring. It was high noon. A
sloping tent of shadow drooped from the pines and made a dark circle
about their roots. In this transparent, purplish tent the brothers faced
each other. Pete's lips were tremulous, and Hugh's distorted.

"Now," sai