I do not know how long I stayed there alone. It was the Virginian who
came back, and as he stood at the foot of my blankets his eye, after
meeting mine full for a moment, turned aside. I had never seen him
look as he did now, not even in Pitchstone Canyon when we came upon the
bodies of Hank and his wife. Until this moment we had found no chance of
speaking together, except in the presence of others.
“Seems to be raining still,” I began after a little.
“Yes. It’s a wet spell.”
He stared out of the door, smoothing his mustache.
It was again I that spoke. “What time is it?”
He brooded over his watch. “Twelve minutes to seven.”