When she rose and went lightly about little homely tasks, her husband's eyes followed her every movement. Something he wanted to say--the sum of all those days of black loneliness and nights of brooding in the Gap cabin after she left him there--stuck in his throat and held him silent. A tiny creature, probably the rock vole, [367] nosing about in the obscurity which hid the rear of the cave, dislodged something which fell with a sudden pang of musical sound across the aching silence, to be followed by tiny squeakings and scuttlings. Callista turned, her hand raised to her lip, and stared into the darkness whence the airy chord spoke to her. Lance looked up and caught the shine of the firelight on her white cheek, her bright hair, lighting a spark in the eye which was averted from him. "It's my old banjo," he said nervelessly. "Go get it, Callista, and break it up and put it on the fire." She seemed to hear only the opening words of his command, and moved quietly into the shadows behind them, groped for the instrument, found and brought it forward in her hand. "Break it 'crost your knee, and then burn it," Lance prompted her. She looked at him with a curious round of the eye, a swift surprise that was almost terror. The banjo, lacking a string and with the remaining four sagging woefully, yet spoke its querulous little protest in her fingers. This was the voice that had cried under her window. Here was the singer of "How many miles, how many years?" and she was bidden to break it and cast it to the flames. This had been Lance's joy of life, the expression of moods outside her understanding and sympathy. She caught the shining [368] thing to her as though she defended it from some menace, cherishing it in a kindly grasp. "Oh, no," she answered softly. "No, Lance. I couldn't burn it up. It's--the banjo is the most harmless thing in the world. Why should I be mad at it?" "You used to be," said Lance simply. "I--" he hesitated, then finished with a sort of haste--"I always was a fool about it. I think you'd better put it in the fire." Reverently she touched the strings, struggling with something too big for expression. "I'll never harm it," she told him. "If I thought you would, I'd take it back with me and keep it till--till you could come and play it again. You just don't feel like yourself now." His arm dropped to the rock beside him. His face, turned away from her, was laid sidewise upon it. She guessed that he feigned sleep. She had forgiven the banjo. She spoke of his homecoming. She would accept him. She would hold nothing against him! . . . Yet, somehow, he could not find in his sore heart the joy and gratitude which should have answered to this state of affairs. He ought to be thankful. It was more than he deserved. Yet--to be forgiven, to be accepted--when had Lance Cleaverage ever desired such boons?