CHAPTER XIX
RIDDLES
CHARMIAN was gazing across the fire at Shonto, half bewildered at his blunt statement. She had known that Andy was concerned in the disaster that had befallen the party, for long since she had connected the little tablets which he took daily with the loss of the medicine case.
“Has Andy told you anything of his physical troubles?” Shonto questioned.
“A little,” she replied. “When we were at Jorny Springs with Leach and Morley. He told me about the period in his boyhood that he can’t remember. He told me that it was necessary for him to take his tablets daily. Some kind of heart trouble, isn’t it?”
The doctor nodded gravely. “Andy doesn’t hesitate to tell about it,” he said. “I imagined that you knew. Well—”
“Pardon me just a moment,” she interrupted. “You haven’t said outright that it is heart trouble, Doctor.” “Have you any reason to think otherwise?
“Yes—now. It seems to me that you are still reticent—virtually evasive. You aren’t a practised dissimulator, Doctor. Why do you try it?”
“I’ll be frank with you,” he said, “if you’ll be as frank with me. Will you?”
“Of course.”
“I shall have to ask for your display of frankness first,” he went on. “You must answer this question before I shall feel at liberty to tell you why I have been close-mouthed: In the big cañon that night before you and I left, did Andy ask you to marry him?”