Just at that moment, from the heights above, a shout echoed distinctly through the clear, still air. There stood Edith, who had already reached the end of their ride, and her companion. She waved her handkerchief and called merrily to the laggards.
Gerald started as if waking from a dream, and hastily passed his hand over his forehead, as though trying to efface some mark there.
"Edith is reminding us to start," he said, in a strangely tremulous tone. "It is really time for us to continue our ride, we had almost--forgotten it."
Danira made no reply, her dark lashes had already drooped again, and with them the veil seemed to fall once more over her whole nature; her face was as cold and rigid as before.
Gerald went to the mules, which had profited by the rest allowed them to browse on the puny plants growing here and there between the bowlders. Loosing the bridles he again turned to his companion.
"One word more, while we are alone. You were very frank to me, perhaps too much so. Can you, dare you, tell me the subject of that nocturnal conversation in the fisherman's hut?"
"No," was the curt, resolute answer.
"Then I must speak, at the peril of seeming to you an informer. When treachery is in question--"
"Treachery!" interrupted the young girl with quivering lips. "I am no traitress."
"Well, what do you call it, then, when hostile plans are woven against those under whose roof, in whose protection you live? How you reconcile your residence under that roof with what I was forced to hear just now is your own affair; it is my duty to warn the colonel, and I shall do so this very day."