He started to speak, but changed his mind; while, without being noticed, she bent nearer, intently watching. "Well?" she asked. "I don't know," he said with a touch of uncertainty, "I reckon maybe it's all wrong up at Sunlight Patch, too!" Tremendously moved, startled, fearful lest he drift entirely from her reach, she slipped still lower and looked up into his face. "What does this mean?" she asked. "What has happened to you, boy?" Mac, feeling that something had gone wrong, came over and pushed his head beneath her arm; and with this she held him, while her other hand impulsively caught Dale's sleeve. A feeling of protectorship, a faint consciousness of motherhood, gave her face an exquisite look of entreaty. What men's lives might be had never taken a definite place in her mind, for she had accepted much and passed over more. But she was not pleading now so much for him, as she was for the trust that had been imposed in her--the knowledge that her honor was answerable to the giver of that trust! "You will not forget your Sunlight Patch, Dale?" she whispered. "You will promise me this?" Slowly the answer for which she hoped began to frame itself upon his lips, and would have been spoken, had not Brent at this moment entered in search of the mountaineer, and got well within the room before seeing her. She arose quietly, entirely free of self-consciousness, and was about to make a sign for him to wait until the promise should be put in words. But he was receiving altogether a different impression of the scene. Yet, whatever his surprise, or the pain it brought, he was too well bred to be taken unawares, and immediately crossed to the shelves as though his errand were a book. The room was so large, and so deeply shadowed near the door, that he might do this; and, indeed, hoped she would believe herself to have been unobserved. But the ruse had not deceived her. It had, instead, merely reflected his own thought; and, as this understanding flashed through her mind, she started forward, hurt;--but as quickly halted in confusion. Rather hastily he took out the first book his fingers touched and was starting back, when again she made as if to follow; but once more stopped before the humiliation of having considered it even necessary to explain to him. Yet one of her hands was still held out, a picture of desperate protest. Of course he did not see this, for his eyes had not dared to turn in her direction after their first unforunate glance. Thus he went into the hall, and an instant later she was staring at the vacant door, now rapidly becoming blurred.