Presently, however, she stood upright suddenly as Alton came up the stairway, but not before he had seen her.

After a swift glance at her he put his hand gently on her shoulder.
"You are in some trouble.

Can't you tell me what it is ?" he said.
Alice Deringham could just see his face in the moonlight, and it was gravely compassionate, but there was in it, none of the personal admiration she had sometimes noticed there, which had its effect upon her attitude towards him.

He was, she felt, sorry for her because she was a woman menaced by some difficulty, and that she should be an object of pity to this bush rancher stung the pride, of which she had a good deal.

Had he tendered his sympathy because she was Alice Deringham it is possible that she would have told him something, though not exactly the simple state of the case.