He re-entered the house with an armload of sticks, and placed them carefully on the embers; stirred up the glowing mass with a poker; readjusted the fresh wood; provoked the red coals once more; and at last, having exhausted the dilatory possibilities of the fire, stood up clumsily to face the ordeal. "Well, Marion," he began awkwardly, "I'm in for it, I reckon." She did not reply; she only looked at him. There were dark shadows around her eyes that heightened the pallor of her cheeks; but the eyes themselves were clear and piercing, and as cold now as they had been fiery before. For once in his life Huntington was conscious of his bulk; he felt conspicuous; and the wound in his shoulder, almost healed, began to itch and ache.--There were worse things than being shot.--If she would only turn those eyes away from him! And then it dawned upon him that she was waiting. "I beg your pardon, Marion!" he stammered. "I was ugly. I didn't really mean--I hope you'll forgive me." For a minute longer she let him stew in his kettle, then lifted him out scrupulously, at the end of a very long fork, and dropped him steaming, as if he had been a lump of unsavory fat. "Yes, I forgive you," she said, very, very distantly. "You probably weren't thinking." If that was forgiveness! But he did not know--even Claire did not know then--how deeply he had wounded Marion with his rude and accusing speech,--as if he had called a jeering crowd to look at the little flower that blooms but once, and very secretly, in a woman's heart. Forgive him? She never would forgive him for that blundering outburst, which was indeed the more unforgivable because he did not seriously mean, and certainly did not believe, the thing he said. "Thank you, Marion dear!" said Claire softly. At that Marion suddenly rushed to Claire, and knelt by her chair. She had her own faults to be forgiven. "I've been very foolish!" she cried. "I've caused you pain and humiliation. I'm sorry. Please forgive me!" So they cried it out in each other's arms, while Huntington rolled a cigarette, took one whiff of it, and tossed it into the fire. It required a stronger narcotic than tobacco to soothe his fevered spirits. After a while he whirled around and faced the two women. "See here, Marion!" he said. "It's all our fault for not telling you about Haig. But we didn't want to annoy you with our troubles, and we never imagined you'd stumble on to him. Do you know now what this is all about?" She spared him the answer that she had heard something on that point the day of the shooting. "No; that is, very little." "Well, it's just this: Before he came here we were all playing the game peacefully together. Each of us had just about enough land, with the cut hay and the winter pastures, to pull through the winter, and there was just enough free grazing up in the edges of the timber to keep the cattle going through the summer and early fall." "That was government land," explained Claire.