We don't care now for the clouds that overcast the
morning. To attain some quiet sentiment of forgiveness----"
"_I_ ask no pardon," he said curtly.
"Oh!"--she gazed up at him with all her soul in her eyes--"_you_ have no
need!"
Had she been warned in a dream, she could have compassed no surer method
of reducing his pride than this self-abnegating generosity. But suddenly
an alien sound impinged on the quietude. The sharp note of a rifle
shattered the silence, the fragmentary echoes clamoring back from the
rocks like a volley of musketry.
"How startling that was!" she exclaimed, turning to look in the opposite
direction over the placid valley commanded by the observatory, with the
purple mountains encircling the horizon. "How this clear air carries the
sound!"
"That was not distant," Bayne observed. "Damp air is a better conductor
of sound than a clear atmosphere."
"It was like blasting," she submitted.
"It was a rifle-shot," he discriminated. "A still-hunter, probably. The
deer come down from the coverts toward evening to drink.
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