Urmston appeared to glance at her reproachfully. "There was a time when you and I could be content without a word. Silence is now and then wonderfully expressive. Thoughts are often spoiled by being forced into clumsy speech." "That time has gone by some little while ago," she said; and there was a quiet decisiveness in the girl's tone that the man did not seem to notice. "Perhaps it was our own fault, though I do not know. Circumstances were against us, but it might have been different, had we had the courage to take our destiny in our hands. Still, I am not admitting that I am sorry we did not do so." Urmston was sensible of a slightly uncomfortable feeling. It had been borne in upon him that, had he shown himself bolder and more persistent, Carrie might, after all, never have married Leland. Still, he did not think it kind that she should remind him of it, if that, indeed, was what she had meant to do. "Those days," he said gently, "will always live with me. I have only the memory of them to cheer me, and I cherish it as my dearest possession." The girl did not know whether she was touched or not. She was naturally, at least, a little sorry for him, but his self-compassionate sentimentality was apt to become tiresome at times. "Wouldn't it be wiser if you made an effort to keep it a little further in the background?" she said. "It would, in the circumstances, at least, be more appropriate." The man dropped his voice. "Carrie," he said, "I couldn't if I wished to. Love of one kind is indestructible. Even the fact that you were forced into marrying another man cannot destroy it. He is, after all, an accident." Carrie's face had flushed, but she laughed outright Urmston's love, indestructible as he said it was, had, as she realised now, prompted him to do very little, while there was something singularly inapposite in his terming her strenuous, forceful husband an accident. She felt that, had he been in her disconsolate lover's place, he would at any cost have broken through the encompassing difficulties. "Ah," she said, "that was really a little ridiculous. Charley Leland is rather unalterable, inflexible of purpose." Urmston appeared confused, and it was, perhaps, a relief to both when Eveline Annersly came up. "Haven't those people got through their business yet?" asked Carrie. "No," said the elder lady. "They were still talking as earnestly as ever when I passed the door. I think something of importance must be going on." The surmise was, as a matter of fact, warranted, for that evening Leland and his neighbours once more sat about the little table discussing the outlaws. A little apart from them, Sergeant Grier sat intent and upright. The windows of the big room were wide open, and the cool evening air flowed in.