What might come of the telling?
How dark loomed the bitterness! She could not know what hid in either of these acts until they were fulfilled.

And the hours became long, and sleep far off, and the quietness of the house a torment, and the melancholy wail of coyotes a reminder of happy girlhood, never to return.
* * * * * When next day the long-deferred hour came Columbine selected a horse that she could run, and she rode up the winding valley swift as the wind.

But at the aspen grove, where Wade's keen, gentle voice had given her secret life, she suffered a reaction that made her halt and ascend the slope very slowly and with many stops.
Sight of Wade's horse haltered near the cabin relieved Columbine somewhat of a gathering might of emotion.

The hunter would be inside and so she would not be compelled at once to confess her secret.

This expectancy gave impetus to her lagging steps.