The dead whiteness of Glenn's face, the lightning scorn of his eyes, the

grim, stark strangeness of him then had for Carley a terrible harmony

with this passionate denunciation of her, of her kind, of the America

for whom he had lost all.

"Oh, Glenn!--forgive--me!" she faltered. "I was only--talking. What do I

know? Oh, I am blind--blind and little!"

She could not bear to face him for a moment, and she hung her head. Her

intelligence seemed concentrating swift, wild thoughts round the shock

to her consciousness. By that terrible expression of his face, by those

thundering words of scorn, would she come to realize the mighty truth

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of his descent into the abyss and his rise to the heights. Vaguely she

began to see. An awful sense of her deadness, of her soul-blighting

selfishness, began to dawn upon her as something monstrous out of dim,

gray obscurity. She trembled under the reality of thoughts that were not

new. How she had babbled about Glenn and the crippled soldiers! How she

had imagined she sympathized! But she had only been a vain, worldly,

complacent, effusive little fool. She had here the shock of her life,

and she sensed a greater one, impossible to grasp.

"Carley, that was coming to you," said Glenn, presently, with deep,

heavy expulsion of breath.

"I only know I love you--more--more," she cried, wildly, looking up and

wanting desperately to throw herself in his arms.

"I guess you do--a little," he replied. "Sometimes I feel you are a

kid. Then again you represent the world--your world with its age-old

custom--its unalterable.... But, Carley, let's get back to my work."

"Yes--yes," exclaimed Carley, gladly. "I'm ready to--to go pet your

hogs--anything."

"By George! I'll take you up," he declared. "I'll bet you won't go near

one of my hogpens."

"Lead me to it!" she replied, with a hilarity that was only a nervous

reversion of her state.

"Well, maybe I'd better hedge on the bet," he said, laughing again. "You

have more in you than I suspect. You sure fooled me when you stood for

the sheep-dip. But, come on, I'll take you anyway."

So that was how Carley found herself walking arm in arm with Glenn

down the canyon trail. A few moments of action gave her at least an

appearance of outward composure. And the state of her emotion was so

strained and intense that her slightest show of interest must deceive

Glenn into thinking her eager, responsive, enthusiastic. It certainly

appeared to loosen his tongue. But Carley knew she was farther from

normal than ever before in her life, and that the subtle, inscrutable

woman's intuition of her presaged another shock. Just as she had seemed

to change, so had the aspects of the canyon undergone some illusive

transformation. The beauty of green foliage and amber stream and brown

tree trunks and gray rocks and red walls was there; and the summer

drowsiness and languor lay as deep; and the loneliness and solitude

brooded with its same eternal significance. But some nameless

enchantment, perhaps of hope, seemed no longer to encompass her. A blow

had fallen upon her, the nature of which only time could divulge.




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