“Shall you reveal your identity before you leave them?” asked Diana.

“No, certainly not!  Not for worlds would I have them know who I am.  And now tell me, Diana, just what are your plans?”

“Oh, nothing at all exciting!  I am going to make some studies of Indian children’s games.  They are picturesque and ethnologically, very interesting.  I shall come home across the Painted Desert and take some pictures in color.  My adventures will be very mild compared with yours.”

“And you and Na-che will be quite alone, out in this trackless country!  I shall worry about you, Diana.”

Diana laughed.  “Enoch, you have no idea of what you are undertaking!  You’ll have no time to give me a thought.  For a week you’re going to struggle as you never did before to keep breath in your body.”

“Oh, it’ll not be that bad!” exclaimed Enoch.  “Are you cold, Diana?  I thought you shivered.  What a strange, ghostlike country it is!  It would be horrible up here alone, wouldn’t it!”

They paused to gaze out over the fantastic landscape.

In the gray light the strangely weathered mesas were ruined castles, stupendous in bulk; the mighty buttes and crumbled peaks were colossal cities overthrown by the cataclysm of time.  It seemed to Enoch, that nowhere else in the world could one behold such epic loneliness.  The excitement that had buoyed him up since Diana’s arrival suddenly departed, and his life with all its ugly facts was vividly in his consciousness again.

“Diana,” he said, abruptly, “when you were talking to me this afternoon, you spoke of the Brown matter in the plural.  Was there more than one article about me?”

Diana turned her tender eyes to Enoch’s.  “Let’s not spoil this beautiful evening,” she pleaded.

“I don’t want to bother you, Diana.  Just tell me the facts and we’ll drop it.”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” replied Diana.

“Please, Diana!  Whatever fight I have down here, whatever conclusion I reach, I want to work with my eyes open, so that my decisions shall be final.  I don’t want to have to revamp and revise when I get out.”

“As far as I know,” said Diana, in a low voice, “there was but one other reference to the matter.  The day after the first article appeared, Brown published a photograph of you and me in front of a Johnstown lunch place.  There was a long caption, which said that you had always been proud that you were slum-reared and a woman hater.  That you had persisted in keeping some of your early habits, perhaps out of bravado.  That Miss Allen was an intimate friend, the only woman friend you had made and kept.  That was all.”

“All!” echoed Enoch.  The pale, silver landscape danced in a crimson mist before him.  He stood, clenching and unclenching his fists, breathing rapidly.

“Oh, Enoch!  Enoch!  Since you had to know, it was better for you to know from me than any one else.  And as far as I am concerned, as I told you before, I’m only amused.  It’s only for the reaction on you that I’m troubled.”