Now it came back upon her, unrebuked; and while she lay thinking over all that had passed between them, one insistent question repeated itself in her brain, "Can I tell him? Shall I tell him before he goes?" And after much debating, she decided on silence. In the first place, he would be saved anxiety if he should not return in time; and in the second place--though this consideration stood undeniably first with her--she preferred that he, at least, should believe in the fiction of their freedom; that nothing should weigh with him, or draw him back to her but his unalterable need of herself. How far her secret was her own to hide or reveal, how far she had any right to withhold such knowledge from the man on the eve of a perilous undertaking,--the man to whom insight told her it would mean immeasurably much,--were questions that simply did not enter her mind. The artist's egotism, and the woman's love of dominion, left no room for fine-drawn scruples of the kind. Never till to-night had she realised how the mountains claimed and held him; and in her sudden fear of losing him, either through misadventure or through the reawakening of the explorer in him, she lost sight of the original point at issue; of the fact that it was her own work, not his, which had threatened to stand between them. An hour later she went into the study, where Lenox, his brow furrowed into deep lines, bent over an outspread map. A glance showed her that already in spirit he was miles away from her, planning the exploration of passes and glaciers guessed at in former journeyings, engrossed, mind and heard, in the possibilities ahead. She came and stood beside him. "I am going now, Eldred," she said, a touch of listlessness in her tone. He looked up and nodded. "That's right. You do look rather fagged this evening." "Only a headache," she answered, flushing and avoiding his eyes. "I shall be all right if I sleep well." "Do you ever sleep badly?" he asked, with the quick sympathy of the sufferer. "Oh dear, no." She hesitated. "Are you coming?" "Yes--later." Still she stood irresolute. Caresses had become rare between them of late; and now pride as well as shyness checked her natural impulse. In turning away, she allowed her left hand to swing outward, ever so little, merely by way of experiment. "He won't see it," she told herself. And, as if in mute denial, his own hand met and grasped it, close and hard. On the threshold she paused and looked back. He was miles away again, hopelessly out of reach. A sudden thought seized her, tempted her. Half a dozen words would suffice to snap the chain that held him; to bring her into his arms. Yet now it seemed impossible to speak them, even if she would; and she went out, leaving him in undisturbed possession of his maps and his mountains.