"I had planned to ask you just that, a little ago, and it
would have been a weak and useless request, wouldn't it? Any man who
has to beg to be remembered is not the sort to remain long in any
woman's brain. So I have taught you to remember, instead. You aren't
going to forget, ever, now! You're coming back in the spring, and
you're coming to stay! And now _I'm_ telling _you_ good-bye. It's
time you were asleep."
He helped her to her feet. Together they turned--and Archibald
Wickersham, tall to gauntness in the moonlight, was coming across
toward them from the direction of the cabin. The girl's slim body
stiffened, but Steve saw her chin come up. His own body grew lazier
still, it seemed, in length and limb.
Wickersham's approaching steps were crisply precise; he stopped an
arm's length in front of them, and his words were an echo of that last
sentence of Steve's.
"It's time you retired," he said, ignoring the other man's presence
entirely. "It's cold, and you have a long, hard ride ahead of you
to-morrow."
For a barely perceptible moment, with the eyes of both men upon her,
Barbara kept her place. Neither of them saw that her teeth were
tightly closed over one full lip; neither knew that she had closed her
eyes, dizzily, for an instant. And then, without a word, she put her
hand upon the arm which Wickersham offered her; but Steve, on the other
side, walked with her that night, as far as the door of the storehouse
shack.
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