"You've given yourself away. A man doesn't utter pious sentiments about a girl he no longer cares for. He doesn't bother to explain his regenerated attitude toward her. He doesn't trouble himself to talk about her at all. Nor does he go roaming after her by starlight. If you really care for her no longer, let her alone. If you do care you'll get mad at what I say—as you're doing—and start off to find her in the starlight—as you're doing——"
But I was too exasperated to listen to such stuff.
I discovered her, finally, in the starlight just ahead of me,—a slim shadow on the high-road, outlined against a stupendous mass of snow which choked the valley like a glacier.
She heard my steps on the hard stone road, looked over her shoulder, then turned sharply, paying me no further attention, even when I came up beside her.
"Gracious!" said I, attempting an easy tone and manner; "what a tremendous fall was here!"
"I have known greater falls," she said very quietly.
"Really?"
"Yes; I once had a friend whose fall was greater."
"Poor fellow! He fell off a precipice, I presume."
"He fell from his high estate, Mr. O'Ryan."