In that outbreak of emotion, were not alone the pent-up pain and humiliation she had suffered, or the desperate joy of that evening's knowledge. There were in it, too, grief and compunction, dismay and doubt of the future. She was engaged to Austen Ware. Would Daunt ever forgive? Would he want her--now? In the first realization of her error, wound with the knowledge that he was so near her, she had felt only joy; but in the silence of her room, shock on shock had come the incredulous question, the burning revulsion. A while she had lain wide-eyed, but at length, sleepless, she had stolen out to the balmy, fragrant night, craving its peace, longing passionately for its soft shadows and the hovering touch of the mountain's breath on her hair. And in its friendly shadows the gust of feeling had swept her from her feet. The action took Daunt wholly by surprise. The sound tore his heart like a ruthless talon, and drew a hoarse word from his lips: "Barbara!" It was little more than a whisper, but she sprang erect with a gasp, her breath labored and terror-stricken. "I--I beg pardon," he said, with a dry catch in his throat. "Don't be frightened. I will go at once. I should not have stayed. But you came so suddenly, and I did not dream--I--" "How strange that you should have been here!" She thought he must hear the loud drumming of her pulse. He laughed--a hard, colorless little laugh. "Yes," he answered, "it seems so." A mist blinded her eyes, for his tone carried to her, even more sharply than had the look she had seen from the balcony, a sense of the pain he had undergone. In what words could she tell him? "You have been suffering," she said in a low voice. "I see that. And it was my fault." He gathered himself together with an effort of will, to still the tingle that flashed along his nerves. "It was quite sane and right, no doubt," he said. "When I have learned to be honest enough with myself, I shall see it so. My mistake was in ever dreaming that I was worth one of your thoughts or a single second's memory." She turned her head abruptly. "Do you hear some one talking? I thought I heard it as I came up the path--like some one muttering to himself." He listened, but there was no sound. "I must have imagined it," she said. There was a moment's pause, and presently she went on: "You have been thinking hard things of me. It is natural that you should. And yet I--whatever you think--whatever you do--that day in the cave, I was not--was not--" "You were nothing you should not have been," he replied rapidly. Her voice had sent a tremor over him--he felt it with a new wave of the morning's contempt. "I understand. There is nothing for you to justify, nothing to regret."