"Between you and me, for instance!" he finished, calmly, his cool demeanor betraying nothing of the seething volcano beneath that unruffled surface. She rose somewhat precipitately and went over and stood by the window. Faint and eerie from the muffling mazes of some far-off coulie came again the wolf cry. She turned shudderingly away. "It sounds like the wail of a lost soul!" "Calling to another affinitive soul, neither of them knowing or caring, in the all-compensative ecstasy of their own making, that they have lost anything at all! Do you imagine that fellow is mouthing platonics out there?" He had risen unconsciously and laid his hot hand on her bare arm; she shrank from it as though it burned her and deliberately placed the table between them. She rang the silver call bell. "I can imagine nothing more to-night but that it is time to retire," she said, humorously. Before he could reply, Lucindy entered, bearing a salver on which was a glass of milk and a pitcher of water. Constance gave him her hand in gentle dismissal. "Go to bed, Wolf," she said, mischievously, "and dream of--of platonics, as befits your rugged constitution. Personally, I am not equal to more than the inspirations of milk-and-water--as yet!" As he opened the door the wolf howled in the distance. He turned with a smile of sinister significance as an answering call rang out in the night. The fair hand holding the diluting pitcher wavered a trifle. A few drops of water failed of their destination and spattered on the table. CHAPTER XIX MUTUAL ASSISTANCE It was three days before she saw him again, he having left at daybreak for a distant part of the range where he went to investigate a disturbing report of mysteriously disappearing cattle whose loss puzzled the most astute of his men. The news had come in over night, and reasoning that she would be a late riser after her fatiguing trip, he merely wrote her a short note saying that he was suddenly called away on urgent business and could not say just when he would return. He was, however, very explicit as to the horses that he deemed safe for her use, particularly recommending a bay filly which he had broken especially for her personal service. He did not deem it necessary to say that the filly was his own personal property, originally designed as a gift for Grace.