thus detaining her for a moment or two, and she caught what they were saying. Trant was speaking angrily.
"Look here, I'm not going to let this chance go because of any damned sentimentality on your part. The thing is as simple as A. B.C., and I intend to carry it through."
"We will discuss the matter later," said Blake, haughtily.
"No, we've got to be on the spot, and you'd better settle to-night about going over to-morrow."
Blake's horse almost cannoned against Elsie's as he came round the bend, and she lifted a frightened face from the disentangling of her skirt.
"Miss Valliant, can I help you?"
He had dismounted instantly.
"It is only my habit caught; oh, thank you, Frank." Frank had turned hastily, not having perceived the accident. "It's all right, I'm clear now."
She rejoined her lover. A moment ago her breast had been stirred with a strange revolt. She had moodily watched his square determined bush man's back as he jogged along in front of her, and had compared it with Blake's easy, graceful, rather rakish bearing. Why was Frank so stolid, so good, so commonplace? There were moments in which she felt that Trant, in even his secondrateness, was the more interesting of the two. Now she had a sudden reaction. The words she had heard had given her a sense of doubt, repulsion, and insecurity. What was the secret in the life of Blake, which made him speak so strangely—which made him different from all the other men she knew? Perhaps it was not a romantic, an heroic secret, a fateful mystery for which he was not responsible, but the secret of unworthy deeds—of a past of which he was ashamed—a past with which Trant was linked—nay, a present, for had not Trant's words implied some sort of immediate action? What did it mean? What could it mean? Elsie shuddered as though something unclean had touched her. There was peace and safety with Frank. She rode close to him, but she said nothing. All the time her mind was tossed with wonder
