Perhaps she read this in his eyes.
"Do not misunderstand," she urged softly.

"I do not come to you because of what has happened, because I am alone and helpless.

If you had stepped from the ranks that night at Dodge, I would have answered even as I do now." "You love me ?--love me ?" he repeated.
"Yes." Even as he looked down into her upturned face, there was borne back upon him a realization of their predicament.

His eyes swept over the surrounding desolation, the two dead bodies lying motionless in the snow, the stiffening pony, the drear hillside which shut them in.

The sight brought him back to consciousness with a shock.