"Of course not," he agreed, with glacial dignity. "I was forgetting that you had--discarded my name." Again the blood flew to her cheeks. "It seemed the simplest way to avoid possible complications, or unnecessary lies." "And you flung away--my ring also?" The question came out in spite of himself, for he had noted her ungloved left hand. "No. Only I could not very well wear it--under the circumstances." He stood aside now to let her pass. He himself then mounted, and followed her along the narrow path, raging against the irony of circumstance, as a man bites upon a sore tooth. On reaching the spaciousness of Bakrota Mall, he had no choice but to ride abreast of his companion. He did so without remark, and since Quita lacked courage to spur her pony to a canter, they continued to ride thus for a time; each, under an admirable mask of composure, painfully aware of the other's presence. Speech seemed only likely to widen the gulf between them, and at all times Lenox had a large capacity for silence. Not so Quita. The last ten minutes had been overcrowded with conflicting emotions; her husband's mute proximity got upon her nerves, and a setting of pine and mountain put a finishing touch to an already intolerable situation. She turned upon him at length, with a small gesture of defiance,--a well-remembered tilt of her chin that pierced him like a sword-thrust. "Don't feel bound to escort me, please. I am constantly out alone. You may have a long way to go; and we need hardly play at polite conventionalities--you and I." He glanced at her keenly for a second. "Thanks; I am in no hurry. But--if you would prefer it?" "I think it would be less--uncomfortable for us both," she made answer desperately. "In that case, of course . . ." He gathered up his reins, and lifted his hat, "At least I am glad to have been of some small service to you," he added, quietly. And before her brain or lips could formulate an answer, he had cantered off and vanished round a shoulder of the hill. CHAPTER III. "Flower o' the clove, All the Latin I construe is 'Amo, I love'!" --Browning. Quita drew rein and sat motionless for several seconds, looking straight before her. "I wonder . . . I wonder very much," she mused, "exactly what one may infer from all that. Either he has superb self-control, or I have been wiped off the slate altogether. Most probably the latter." Then she moved forward slowly, in a state of mind so complicated that, for all her skill in self-analysis, she could not unravel her own sensations. She only knew that she felt jarred through and through, and in a mood to give way to her most dare-devil impulses. But happily for her, no egregious piece of folly was ready to hand at the moment.