|16|At sunset Adam cooked supper for the Vireys, satisfying his own needs after they had finished. Virey talked lightly, even joked about the first good meal he had sat down to on the desert. His wife, too, talked serenely, sometimes with the faintly subtle mockery, as if she had never intimated that a dividing spear threatened her heart. That was their way to hide the truth and emotion when they willed. But Adam was silent.
Alone, out under the shadow of the towering gate to the valley, he strode to and fro, absorbed in a maze of thoughts that gradually cleared, as if by the light of the solemn stars and virtue of the speaking silence. He had chanced upon the strangest and most fatal situation in all his desert years. Yes, but was it by chance? Straight as an arrow he had come across the
