She retired within the shack and did not reappear till the middle of the afternoon. Meanwhile, Adam had worked at his tasks, trying at the same time to keep an eye on Virey, who wandered around aimlessly over the rock-strewn field, idling here and plodding there. Adam saw how Virey watched the shack; and when Magdalene came out again he saw her and grew as motionless as the stone where he leaned. Every thought of Virey’s must have been dominated by this woman’s presence, the meaning of her, the possibilities of her, the tragedy of her. “Oh, how I slept!” she exclaimed. “Is it work that makes you sleep?” “Indeed yes.” “Ah! I see my noble husband standing like Mephistopheles, smiling at grief.... What’s he doing over there?” “I don’t know, unless it’s watching for you. He’s been around like that for hours.” “Poor man!” she said, with both compassion and mockery. “Watching me? What loss of precious time--and so futile! It is a habit he contracted some years ago.... Wansfell, take me down to the opening in the mountain there, so that I can look into Death Valley.” “Shall I ask Virey?” queried Adam, in slight uncertainty. “No. Let him watch or follow or do as he likes. I am here in Death Valley. It was his cherished plan to bury me here. I shall not leave until he takes me--which will be never. For the rest, he is nothing to me. We are as far apart as the poles.” On the way down the gentle slope Adam halted amid sun-blasted shrubs, scarcely recognizable as greasewood. Here he knelt in the gravel to pluck some flowers so tiny that only a trained eye could ever have espied them. One was a little pink flower with sage color and sage odor; another a white daisy, very frail, and without any visible leaves; and a third was a purple-red flower, half the size of the tiniest buttercup, and this had small dark-green leaves. “Flowers in Death Valley!” exclaimed Mrs. Virey, in utter amaze. “Yes. Flowers of a day! They sprang up yesterday; to-day they bloom, to-morrow they will die. I don’t know their names. To me their blossoming is one of the wonders of the desert. I think sometimes that it is a promise. A whole year the tiny seeds lie in the hot sands. Then comes a mysterious call and the green plant shoots its inch-long stalk to the sun. Another day beauty unfolds and there is fragrance on the desert air. Another day sees them whither and die.” “Beauty and fragrance indeed they have,” mused the woman. “Such tiny flowers to look and smell so sweet! I never saw their like. Flowers of a day!... They indeed give rise to thoughts too deep for tears!” Adam led his companion to the base of the mountain wall, and around the corner of the opening, so that they came suddenly and unexpectedly into full view of Death Valley. He did not look at her. He wanted to wait a little before doing that. The soft gasp which escaped her lips and the quick grasping of his hand were significant of the shock she sustained.