Lance lay tensely quiescent a moment, then he questioned softly,
"Is that a sign?"
Callista glanced at him a bit startled; but the long lashes veiled his eyes, and the face was indecipherable.
"Roxy was bound and determined to come here in my place," she observed. "I reckon I'd never 'a' got the word where you was hid out if it hadn't 'a' been for her. Sylvane wouldn't tell her, and she come to me about it. Sis' Roxy has a kind heart under her sharp speech."
From beneath those shadowing lashes Lance looked long and curiously at her, but made no response. After the meal was served and eaten with a sort of subdued enjoyment, they continued silent, glancing furtively at each other, Callista a bit uneasy, and most urgent that he should try to rest.
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 367 rock vole, 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 367 caught the shining thing to her as though she defended it from some menace, cherishing it in a kindly grasp.