"Have you ever truly given me yours?" was the low, impetuous response. "No. If you had, I should not be the unhappy girl I am-to-night. Well, since you wish to know the whole truth you shall. You said you could trust me implicitly, and I promised to deserve your trust. If you had said to me that Burt was bound to you when I told you that I was heart-whole and fancy-free, I should have been on my guard. Is it natural that I should be indifferent to the man who risked his life to save mine? Why have you left me so long in his society without a hint of warning? But I shall keep my word. I shall not try to snatch happiness from another." Johnnie's tuneful little voice was piping a song, and the rumble of the wheels over a stony road prevented Maggie, on the last seat, from hearing anything. The clasp of Amy's arm tightened. "Now you _shall_ stay with me to-night," she said. "I cannot explain here and now. See, Burt has turned, and is coming toward us. I pledge you my word he can never be to me more than a brother. I do not love him except as a brother, and never have, and you can snatch no happiness from me, except by treating me with distrust and going away." "Oh, Amy," began Miss Hargrove, in tones and with a look that gave evidence of the chaotic bewilderment of her mind. "Hush! We are not very lonely, thank you, Mr. Burt. You look, as far as I can see you through the dusk, as if you were commiserating us as poor forlorn creatures, but we have some resources within ourselves." "The dusk is, indeed, misleading. We are the forlorn creatures who have no resources. Won't you please take us in?" "Take you in! What do you take us for? I assure you we are very simple, honest people." "In that case I shall have no fears, but clamber in at once. I feel as if I had been on a twenty-mile tramp." "What an implied compliment to our exhilarating society!" "Indeed there is--a very strong one. I've been so immensely exhilarated that, in the re-action, I'm almost faint." "Maggie," cried Amy, "do take care of Burt; he's going to faint." "He must wait till we come to the next brook, and then we'll put him in it." "Webb," said Amy, looking over her shoulder at the young man, who was now following the carriage, "is there anything the matter with you, also?" "Nothing more than usual." "Oh, your trouble, whatever it may be, is chronic. Well, well, to think that we poor women may be the only survivors of this tremendous expedition." "That would be most natural--the survival of the fittest, you know." "I don't think your case serious. Science is uppermost in your mind, as ever. You ought to live a thousand years, Webb, to see the end of all your theories." "I fear it wouldn't be the millennium for me, and that I should have more perplexing theories at its end than now."