“Was either of the men a—any one whom I knew?” he asked.
“Joe asked me to marry him, but—”
“I beg your pardon, Swickey. I didn’t mean to be inquisitive, but you seemed to feel so badly about it—”
“It was different—Andy—but Joe. Oh, I wish I could have told him—what I wanted to.”
David thought he understood and kept silent as they walked up the slope toward the camp. He could not help noticing the change in her: the neat, trim figure, lithely erect; the easy, natural stride; the maturing fullness of the softly rounded cheek and throat; the great, heavy braids of dusky hair that were caught up beneath her cap and showed so sharply against her present pallor; the firm, slender brown hands.... He drew a long breath and turned his eyes from her toward his cabin, where Bascomb sat, pack-sack beside him, wreathed in films of smoke that drifted from his pipe.
Even with his knowledge of the accident, and her grief, so manifest, a little pang of something akin to jealousy gripped him. So she was to have been married.... When he had thought of her during his absence, it was of the girl who “wanted him—just him and no one else.” He had never dreamed of being anything more than a friend to her, even then. But now.... He brushed the thought aside with a touch of self-accusing anger.
“Wallie, this is Miss Avery.”
Bascomb, who had arisen as they approached, laid down his pipe and shook hands with her gravely. He noticed traces of her agitation and refrained from making one of his characteristic remarks, bowing as she excused herself and hastened toward the camp.
“Swickey’s all broken up about the accident. Two men just killed in the gorge—on the drive. I don’t know just how it happened.”
“Great Scott! Two of them killed? In the gorge? Why, we passed there less than an hour ago. Say, Davy, I’m going back and—”