Mute as before the big man sat motionless, listening.  From the bottom of his soul he wished to say something in refutation, in self-defence; but he could not.  There was nothing to say.

“No, I never even dreamed of such a thing,” went on the repressed voice, “not even when at first you were slow to give your consent to our marriage.  I fancied it was merely because you thought me impractical, because I cared nothing for a life that was different, was not my own.  Nor again, even a bit ago when you asked me to promise—­what I did promise—­I did not suspicion such a thing.  I thought it a compliment, the sincerest compliment I had ever received in my life:  the fact that you should trust me so, with all that was dear to you in the world.”  Just perceptibly he halted, but his eyes did not leave the white man’s face.  “But I see it all now.  I was blind before, but I see at last.  You are like the rest, like everyone with a white skin.  The fact that we’ve lived together for half a generation makes no difference.  You’re square, square to the end.  You even like me in a way.  You’ve given your word and won’t go back on it; but nevertheless you’re sorry.  Even while you urge us to marry, to have the thing over, to have a responsibility off your mind, you feel you are sacrificing Bess to an inferior.”  He halted for a second, and even at this time Landor was conscious that it was infinitely the longest speech he had ever heard the man make.  “I don’t blame you, Mr. Landor; you can’t help it; it’s the instinct of your race; but nevertheless, nevertheless—­”

The voice halted abruptly, repressedly.  The intense black eyes were of a sudden looking directly past the other, straight up at the roof of the tent.  No power on earth could have made him complete that sentence, made him admit the deadly hurt it suggested.  From the unusual confidence of a bit ago he merely lapsed into the normal, his own repressed, impassive self.  Yet as plainly as though he had spoken Landor recognised the difference, realised as well that while outwardly there would be no change, from this moment on so long as they both lived the confidence of the Indian would be as dead to him as though he had ceased to exist.  He had seen it happen before.  He knew the signs.  With the knowledge for the first time in the years they two had lived together he realised how much after all he had grown to depend upon this laconic human, how much he had lost.  It was the last drop in his cup of bitterness, the crushing straw.  His great ungainly body dropped forward until his face was hid in his hands.  On the walls of the tent a distorted, exaggerated shadow marked the movement of his shoulders as they rose and fell with his deep, irregular breathing.  Again silence fell upon them, silence that by word of mouth was to remain unbroken.  In it from the stable there sounded again the wail of the lonely baby, and a moment later, muffled, echo-like from the distance, the answering call of one of its own kind free upon