Brooke, who was by no means certain what she wished him to understand from this, leaned against a cedar looking down at her gravely. This was the woman who had embittered several years of his life, and for whom he had flung a good deal away, and now he was most clearly sensible of his folly. Had he met her in a drawing-room or even the Vancouver opera-house, it might not have been quite so apparent to him, but she seemed an anachronism in that strip of primeval wilderness. Nature was dominant there, and the dull pounding of the stamp-heads, which came faintly through the silence among the great trunks that had grown slowly during centuries, suggested man's recognition of the curse and privilege that was laid upon him in Eden. Graceful idleness was not esteemed in that country, where bread was won by strenuous toil, and the stillness and dimness of those great forest aisles emphasized the woman's artificial superficiality. Voice and gesture, befrizzled, straw-colored hair which he had once called golden, constricted waist, and figure which was suggestively wooden in its curves, enforced the same impression, until the man, who realized that she had after all probably made at least as good a use of life as he had, turned his eyes away. "You really couldn't expect him to," he said, with a little laugh. "He has never had to do anything of that kind for a living as I have." He held up his hands and noticed her little shiver as she saw the scarred knuckles, hard, ingrained flesh, and broken nails. "Oh," she said, "how cruel! Whatever have you been doing?" Brooke glanced at his fingers reflectively. "On the contrary, I suppose I ought to feel proud of them, though I scarcely think I am. Building flumes and dams, though that will hardly convey any very clear impression to you. It implies swinging the axe and shovel most of every day, and working up to the waist in water occasionally." "But you were always so particular in England." "I could naturally afford to be. It cost me nothing when I was living on another man's bounty." The woman made a little gesture. "And you gave up everything for me!" Brooke laughed softly, for it seemed to him that a little candor was advisable. "As a matter of fact, I am not quite sure that I did. My native wrong-headedness may have had its share in influencing me. Anyway, that was all done with--several years ago." "You will not be bitter, Harford," and she cast him a glance of appeal which might have awakened a trace of tenderness in the man had it sprung from any depth of feeling. "Can anything of that kind ever be quite done with?" Brooke commenced to feel a trifle uneasy. "Well," he said, reflectively, "I certainly think it ought to be." To his relief his companion smiled and apparently decided to change the subject. "You never even sent me a message. It really wasn't kind."