When we had discovered the path that led down to Aidenn Water and were well on our slanting way to the valley bottom, she found more strength in the smoother footing. Suddenly I felt that she was scrutinizing me, and I turned my head to hear her ask:
“What did it remind you of—that place up there?”
“A graveyard,” I answered almost without thought.
“Just so. Tell me honestly; have you never been there before?”
“Before?—there?” I repeated, quite truly surprised.
“Don’t temporize, please. Confess that you were there before but didn’t set it down when you wrote your journal. That was the place where you fell when you escaped from the bull, and it was where you took shelter from the storm the day you saw the rainbow. Wasn’t it?” I did not answer but she insisted. “I suppose you had some foolish fear that if you wrote about it and someone—like poor me—read of the discovery before you had published it to the world, you might lose the credit for it. Yes? For it was your discovery, and I only followed the hints you gave.”
“Yes,” I said promptly, since my secret was guessed. “It was my discovery, and I wanted to preserve it for myself. I thought I had written enough, without being explicit to the point of revelation, to sustain any claim I might need to make afterward. I suppose you think I was a very large and egregious idiot?”
For a little while she did not answer. When I turned to look at her, her eyes seemed to dwell not on the present but on the past, and there was the intention of a smile in her face. “No; I think you were an—antiquarian. Ah, you scholars!”
“Well, in archæological circles you know—” I broke off.
“Archæological circles seem about as important as ant-hills to me, just now. One thing, though, I really learned last night and today—a platitude I never quite believed in.”