But I must stop this kind of talk." She pressed his hand in response.

He helped her to a seat beside him on the bench.

And he respected a silence that he divined was full of woman's deep emotion beyond his understanding.
It was the moment when the last ruddy rays of the sunset brightened momentarily before yielding to twilight.

And for Venters the outlook before him was in some sense similar to a feeling of his future, and with searching eyes he studied the beautiful purple, barren waste of sage.

Here was the unknown and the perilous.