In Secret

"Roebuck," she repeated trying not to speak wistfully.

He nodded: "One crossed the stream below. I saw the tracks in the moss, which was still stirring where the foot had pressed."

"Dare you risk a shot in Les Errues, Kay?"

"I don't think I'd hesitate."

After a silence: "Why don't you rest? You must be dead tired," she said. And he felt a slight pressure of her fingers drawing him.

So he laid aside his work, dropped upon his blanket, and turned on his left side, looking at her.

"You have not yet seen any sign of the place from which you once looked out across the frontier and saw thousands and thousands of people as busy as a swarm of ants--have you, Kay?"

"I remember this stream and these woods. I can't seem to recollect how far or in which direction I turned after passing this granite gorge."

"Did you go far?"

"I can't recollect," he said. "I'd give my right arm if I could." His worn and anxious visage touched her.

"Don't fret, Kay, dear," she said soothingly. "We'll find it. We'll find out what the Hun is doing. We'll discover what this Great Secret really is. And our pigeons shall tell it to the world."

And, as always, she smiled cheerfully, confidently. He had never heard her whine, had never seen her falter save from sheer physical weariness.

"We'll win through, Yellow-hair," he said, looking steadily into her clear brown-gold eyes.

"Of course. You are so wonderful, Kay."

"That is the most wonderful thing in the world, Evelyn--to hear you tell me such a thing!"

"Don't you know I think so?"

"I can't believe it--after what you know of me--"

"Kay!"

"I'm sorry--but a scar is a scar--"

"There is no scar! Do you hear me! No scar, no stain! Don't you suppose a woman can judge? And I have my own opinion of you, Kay--and it is a perfectly good opinion and suits me."

She smiled, closed her eyes as though closing the discussion, opened them and smiled again at him.

And now, as always, he wondered how this fair young girl could find courage to smile in the very presence of the most dreadful death any living woman could suffer--death from the Hun.

He lay looking at her and she at him, for a while.

In the silence, a dry stick snapped and McKay was on his feet as though it had been the crack of a pistol.

Presently he stooped, and she lifted her pretty head and rested one ear close to his lips: "It's that roebuck, I think, down stream." Then something happened; her ear touched his mouth--or his lips, forming some word, came into contact with her--so that it was as though he had kissed her and she had responded.