noon
If they loved , why did they not commit themselves boldly to the undertaking , take matters in their own hands and have an end to all secrecy ? He felt a menace in this secrecy , as if somehow it threatened him . He perceived that Mills suffered , that something gnawed at the man . When he rested from his work , when he sat quiescent beside the fire where they ate at noon together , that cloak of melancholy brooding wrapped Mills close . He seldom talked . When he did there was in his speech a resentful inflection like that of a man who smarts under some injury , some injustice , some deep hurt which he may not divulge but which nags him to the limits of his endurance . Hollister was Mills ' sole company after the other two men left .