"It was not politics with us," Thane replied curtly. Changing the subject, he said, "I wish you could see the valley from that hogback over to the west." He pointed towards the spine of the main divide, which they would cross on their next day's journey. "Will you come up there this evening and take a look at the country? The wind will die down at sunset, I think." There was a studied commonplaceness in his manner; his eyes avoided hers. "Thanks; I should like to," she answered in the same defensive tone. * * * * * "To go back to what we were saying," Daphne began, when they were seated, that evening, on the hilltop. All around them the view of the world rose to meet the sky, glowing in the west, purple in the east, while the pale planets shone, and below them the river glassed and gleamed in its crooked bed. "I ask you seriously," she said. "What was the trouble between you?" Doubtless she had a reason for asking, but it was not the one that she proceeded to give. "Had you--have you, perhaps--any claims in a business way against him? Because, if you had, it would be most unfair to his father"--The words gave her difficulty; but her meaning, as forced meanings are apt to be, was more than plain. Thane was not deceived: a woman who yields to curiosity, under however pious an excuse, is, to say the least, normal. Her thoughts are neither in the heavens above nor in the grave beneath. His black eyes flashed with the provocation of the moment. It was instinct that bade him not to spare her. "We quarreled," he said, "in the orthodox way,--about a woman." "Indeed!" said Daphne. "Then you must pardon me." "And her name," he continued calmly. "I did not ask you her name." "Still, since we have gone so far"-- "There is no need of our going any farther." "We may as well,--a little farther. We quarreled, strangely enough, about you,--the first time he ever spoke of you. He would not have spoken then, I think, but he was a little excited, as well he might have been. Excuse me?" He waited. "Nothing!" said Daphne. She had made an involuntary protesting sound. "He said he hoped to bring you back with him. I asked how long since he had seen you; and when he told me five years, I remarked that he had better not be too sure. 'But you don't know her,' he said; 'she is truth itself, and courage. By as many times as she has refused to listen to me, I am sure of her now.' I did not gather somehow that you were--engaged to him, else I hope I should not have gone so far. As it was, I kept on persisting--like a cynic who has no one of his own to be sure of--that he had better not be too sure! He might have seen, I thought then, that it was half chaff and half envy with me; but it was a nervous time, and I was less than sympathetic, less than a friend to him. And now I am loaded with friendship's honors, and you have come yourself to prove me in the wrong. You punish me by converting me to the truth."