I who changed. I had to
live up to Weatherbee; justify his faith in me."

Miss Armitage shook her head slowly. "That is hard to believe. Whoever
tried to mould you would feel through the surface that streak of iron."
They had come to another precipitous place, and Tisdale turned again to
give her the support of his hand. The position brought his face on a level
with hers, and involuntarily she stopped. "But whatever you may say, Mr.
Tisdale," she went on, and as her palm rested in his the words gathered
the weight of a pact, "whatever may--happen--I shall never forget your
greatness to-day." She sprang down beside him, and drew away her hand and
looked back to the summit they had left. "Still, tell me this," she said
with a swift breathlessness. "If it had been David Weatherbee's wife up
there with you when the thunderbolt struck, would it have made a
difference? I mean, would you have left her to escape--or not--as she
could?"

Tisdale waited a thoughtful moment. The ripple of amusement was gone; the
iron, so near the surface, cropped through. "I can't answer that," he
said. "I do not know. A man is not always able to control a first impulse,
and before that pine tree fell there wasn't time to hesitate."

At this she was silent. All her buoyancy, the charming camaraderie that
stopped just short of intimacy, had dropped from her. It was as though the
atmosphere of that pocket rose and clung to her, enveloped her like a
nimbus, as she went down. In the pent heat her face seemed cold. She had
the appearance of being older. The fine vertical line at the corner of her
mouth, which Tisdale had not noticed before, brought a tightness to his
throat when he ventured to look at her. How could Weatherbee have been so
blind? How could he have missed the finer, spiritual loveliness of this
woman? Weatherbee, who himself had been so sensitive; whose intuition was
almost feminine.

They had reached the final step from the bench to the floor of the vale
when Hollis spoke again. "If you do decide to buy this land and open the
project, I could recommend a man who would make a trusty manager."

"Oh, you don't understand," she replied in desperation "You don't
understand. I should have to stay, to live in this terrible place for
weeks, months at a time. I couldn't endure it. That dreadful mountain
there at the gap would forever be watching me, holding me in."

Tisdale looked at her, knitting his brows, "I told you it was dangerous t