'You have known this for a fortnight?' she asked. 'That doesn't
seem somehow quite fair.'

'To whom?' I asked, and her answer startled me.

'To either of us,' she said.

How she advised herself to that effect is more than I can imagine,
but the print of her words is indelible, that is what she said.

'Oh, confound it!' I exclaimed. 'I couldn't help finding out, you
know.'

'But you could help keeping it to yourself in that--in that base
way,' she replied, and almost--the evening light was beginning to
glimmer uncertainly through the deodars--I could swear I saw the
flash of a tear on her eyelid.

'I beg your pardon,' she went on a moment later, 'but I do hate
having to pity him. It's intolerable--that.'

I picked up a dainty edition of Aucassin and Nicolette with the
intention of getting upon ground less emotional, and observed on the
flyleaf 'D.H. from I.A. In memory of the Hill of Stars.' I looked
appreciatively at the binding, and as soon as possible put it down.

'He was not bound to tell me,' Dora asserted presently, in reply to
my statement that the mare had somehow picked up a nail in the