They had reached the hut, and Raven took out the key from under the stone. Close by, there was a velvet fern frond ready to unfurl. He unlocked the door and they went in. Her last question he did not answer until he had thrown up windows and brought out chairs to the veranda at the west. When they were seated, he went on probing for his past impression and speaking thoughtfully. "No, I don't know that I was particularly sorry for him. But somehow the two of them there together, with that poor little devil between them--well, it seemed to me I couldn't separate them. That's marriage, I suppose. Anyhow it looked to me like it: something you couldn't undo because they wouldn't have it undone." Nan turned on him her old impetuous look. "You simpleton!" she had it on her tongue to say. "She doesn't want it undone because anybody that lifts a finger will get you--not her--deeper into the mire." But she did say: "I don't believe you can even guess what she wants, chiefly because she doesn't want anything for herself. But if you didn't ask her to leave him, what did you do?" "I told him to hold himself ready for arrest." "You're a funny child," commented Nan. "You warn the criminal and give him a chance to skip." "Yes," said Raven unsmilingly. "I hoped he would. I thought I was giving her one more chance. If he did skip, so much the better for her." "How did she look?" asked Nan, and then added, tormenting herself, "Beautiful?" "Yes, beautiful. Not like an angel, as we've seen her. Like a saint: haggard, with hungry eyes. I suppose the saints hunger, don't you? And thirst." He was looking off through the tree boles and Nan, also looking, found the distance dim and felt the sorrow of youth and spring. "Everything," said Raven, "seems to be in waves. It has its climax and goes down. Tenney's reached the climax of his jealousy. Now he's got himself to think about, and the other thing will go down. Rather a big price for Dick to pay, to make Tira safe, but he has paid and I fancy she's safe." He turned to her suddenly. "Milly's very nice to you," he asserted, half interrogatively. He saw the corner of her mouth deepen a little as she smiled. Milly had not, they knew, been always nice. "Yes," she agreed, "very nice. She gives me all the credit she doesn't give you about doctors and nurses and radiographs and Dick's hanging on by his eyelids. She says I've saved him." "So you have," said Raven. "You've kept his heart up. And now you're tired, my dear, and I want you to go away." "To go away?" said Nan. "Where?" "Anywhere, away from us. We drain you like the deuce." "No," said Nan, turning from him and speaking half absently, "I can't go away." "Why can't you?" "He'd miss me." "He'd know why you went." Her old habit of audacious truth-telling constrained her.