A half hour later, grumbling remonstrances which were silently overruled, the Virginian found himself in efficient hands.
The fog had not lasted long and this morning the hills sparkled with a renewed freshness. A row of hollyhocks along the stone wall nodded brightly, and the sun's clarity was a wash of transparent gold.
Stuart Farquaharson studied the profile of the woman who was busying herself with bandages and liniments.
The exquisite curve of her cheek and throat; the play of an escaped curl over her pale temple and the sweet wistfulness of her lips: none of these things escaped him.
"It's not necessary, after all, that you should go away, Stuart," she announced with a calm abruptness to Farquaharson's complete mystification. "Last night I was in the grip of something like hysteria, I think. Perhaps I'm still young enough to be influenced by such things as music and moonlight."
"And this morning?"
"This morning," she spoke in a matter-of-fact voice as she measured and cut a strip of bandage, "I am heartily ashamed of my moment of panic. This morning I'm not afraid of you. Whether you go or stay, I sha'n't give way again."
"Conscience," protested the man with an earnestness that drew his brow into furrows of concentration, "last night I said many things that were pure excitement. After years of struggling to put you out of my life and years of failure to do it, after believing absolutely that it had become a one-sided love, I learned suddenly that you loved me, too. The summed-up spell of all those hungry times was on me last night. Can't you make allowances for me?"
"I have made allowances," she assured him steadily. "I've made so many—that I'm no longer angry with you. You see I spent most of last night thinking of it. We were both moon mad. Only now—we can't go on pretending to be Platonic friends any more. When war has been declared comradeships between enemies have to end."