It was only the ticking of Keok's clock that broke the silence for a time.

Then he released the hand, and it dropped in the girl's lap again.

She had been looking steadily at the streak of gray in his hair.

And a light came into her eyes, a light which he did not see, and a little tremble of her lips, and an almost imperceptible inclination of her head toward him.
"I'm sorry I didn't know," he said.

"I realize now how you must have felt back there in the cottonwoods." "No, you don't realize--_you don't!_" she protested.
In an instant, it seemed to him, a vibrant, flaming life swept over her again.