While he ate the biscuit a flock of geese passed, honking, far below him over the sun-baked plain. He stood watching the wavering line until it disappeared, then he unstrapped his blanket and spread it on the bank and threw himself down. He closed his eyes, but he did not sleep. His features worked, and from time to time he moved his head uneasily. "Yes," he said aloud, at last, "that was the weak link in the chain; I failed to ingratiate myself with Forrest. I could have done it—I could—if I had foreseen the end. It all hinged on him. Granted Kingsley’s wife saw us that night; granted she moved the stuff, concealed it, as Smith said, under that rotten floor; she went to Forrest right off, I swear, and eased her conscience. And he put two and two together, in his calculating way; he guessed at the clue and sent Bates to look for it—at the top of the bluff. Always, everywhere it has been Paul Forrest. He built on a first word or two of suspicion from Bates, and tried to set the Captain against me; he spied on me, thwarted me—made himself my foil. I could have won out; I could have covered the disgrace; made a fresh start; lived it down; proved myself her kind of man—if he had not stood in the way. And I would like just once—before the finish—to meet him, hand to hand—and have it out. Damn him!—" he stretched his arms; the cords knotted; his fingers seemed to grasp something tangible; they clenched, relaxed, clenched again,—"Damn his righteous, irreproachable soul." After an interval he spoke again. "But it is too bad about the Captain. I will do my best for him; I will shoulder it all; and with the Judge’s influence he should pull clear. Why,—" he started to his elbow with the shadow of his old, mocking smile,—"his wife can’t witness against him, even if she wants to. A wife’s testimony isn’t allowable in a Washington court." He passed his hand across his eyes and sank back on his blanket. "I am sorry for that little woman though. She is so proud—so fine; it’s going to cut—deep. She never liked me. Once, that last time I met her there at the ruin, she lifted her skirt and walked around the place where I had stood. How she must hate me now. But sometime, since it has made a reason for her to break with Kingsley, she ought to thank me." Then finally, after another interval, he struck the keynote of his return. "My God, I had to come back. It was impossible, unbearable to ride on; day after day, alone—through the awful silence. To see her face—that last look she gave me, the contempt, the aversion of it—following me, crowding me, haunting every sage bush. I have got to change it. She used to like me—she would have loved me—and she will forgive me. She promised me, that time up at the Paradise, she promised me her mercy. She will forgive me—she must. I have got to see her—speak to her once more. And I am ready to—pay the price."