“If she could have stayed so ...” he began again, “as long as she stayed so, I could feel ... what was it you used to say? ... the roll of the world eastward.... But to have it end like this ... in meanness and betrayal ... I wish I might have brought her back with me!” “Better that you did not, considering what she would come back to meet. If she loved Ravenutzi she is having her happiness now. If she suffers at all it is not for what she has done but for what you may think of it. And if there is any deep-felt misery going on in this anywhere, it is on the part of Ravenutzi’s wife.” “Ah, I had forgotten there was a wife.” I meant he should not forget, nor lose for that shallow girl any of the deeper opprobriousness that should attach to the double betrayal. But I was taken by surprise to have him turned by that suggestion quite in another direction. “A desperate woman, by your account of her,” he said. “Promise me, Mona, that you will not hold any further communication with her, and that you will not go out of the camp without an escort. It isn’t safe, and it isn’t quite fair, is it, to parley with the enemies of the Outliers?” If he had stopped with the consideration of my safety, I should probably have consented meekly like any woman when any man takes an interest in her, but that suggestion of unfairness set me at odds again. “I shall not do anything imprudent,” I said; “but as to the relation of my behavior to the Outliers, that is a matter which you must leave me to decide for myself.” “I suppose so,” said Herman ruefully. “I beg your pardon. I don’t know how it is, Mona, I let other women do pretty much as they like with me, but I always find myself getting irritated if you don’t do exactly as I say.” I was certain Herman had never said anything like this to me before, yet it had so familiar a ring to it that I found myself going back in my mind for the association. I recalled what Evarra said when she asked if Herman was in love with me, that if such were the case he would expect me to do as he said. I was so taken up with this possibility that I heard not too attentively the far cry of coyotes going by. There must have been some nuance in it not of the beasts’ cry, for the Outliers began springing up around us, listening and intent. It came again and one answered it. By such signs we were made aware it was Mancha returning from the Smithy. XII HOW AN OUTLIER SAW A TALL WOMAN FOLLOWING A TRAIL AND MANCHA MET THE SMITH AGAIN