say: “Did she stay long?”
But his eyes avoided her. She moved a little so as to read his face, but when he turned again and answered her stare she winced. “Not very long, Pierre.”
“Ah,” he said. “I see! It was because she didn't dream that this was the place I lived in.”
It was the sort of heartless, torturing questioning which was once the crudest weapon of the inquisition. With all her heart she fought to raise her voice above the whisper whose very sound accused her, but could not. She was condemned to that voice as the man bound in nightmare is condemned to walk slowly, slowly, though the terrible danger is racing toward him, and the safety which he must reach lies only a dozen steps, a dozen mortal steps away.
She said in that voice: “No; of course she didn't dream it.”
“And you, Jack, had her interests at heart—her best interests, poor girl, and didn't tell her?”
Her hands went out to him in mute appeal.
“Please, Pierre—don't!”
“Is something troubling you, Jack?”
“You are breaking my heart.”
“Why, by no means! Let's sit here calmly and chat about the girl with the yellow hair. To begin with—she's rather pleasant to look at, don't you think?”
“I suppose she is.”
“Hm! Rather poor taste not to be sure of it. Well, let it go. You've always had rather queer taste in women, Jack; but, of course, being a long-rider, you haven't seen much of them. At least her name is delightful—Mary Brown! You've no idea how often I've repeated it aloud to myself—Mary Brown!”
“I hate her!”
“You two didn't have a very agreeable time of it? By the way, she must have left in rather a hurry to forget her glove, eh?”
“Yes, she ran—like a coward.”
“Ah?” “Like a trembling coward. How can you care for a white-faced little fool like that? Is she your match? Is she your mate?”
He considered a moment, as though to make sure that he did not exaggerate.
“I love her, Jack, as men love water when they've ridden all day over hot sand without a drop on their lips— you know when the tongue gets thick and the mouth fills with cotton—and then you see clear, bright water, and taste it?
“She is like that to me. She feeds every sense; and when I look in her eyes, Jack, I feel like the starved man on the desert, as I was saying, drinking that priceless water. You knew something of the way I feel, Jack. Isn't it a little odd that you didn't keep her here?”
She had stood literally shuddering during this speech, and now she burst out, far beyond all control: “Because she loathes you; because she hates herself for ever having loved you; because she despises herself for having ridden up here after you. Does that fill your cup of water, Pierre, eh?”
His forehead was shining with sweat, but he set his teeth, and, after a moment, he was able to say in the same hard, calm voice: “I suppose there was no real reason for her change. She can be persuaded back to me in a moment. In that case just tell me where she has gone and I'll ride after her.”
He made as if to rise, but she cried in a panic, and yet with a wild exultation: “No, she's done with you forever, and the more you make love to her now the more she'll hate you. Because she knows that when you kissed her before—when you kissed her—you were living with a woman.”
“I—living with a woman?”
Her voice had risen out of the whisper for the outbreak. Now it sank back into it.
“Yes—with me!” “With you? I see. Naturally it must have gone hard with her—Mary! And she wouldn't see reason even when you explained that you and I are like brothers?”
He leaned a little toward her and just a shade of emotion came in his voice.
“When you carefully explained, Jack, with all the eloquence you could command, that you and I have ridden and fought and camped together like brothers for six years? And how I gave you your first gun? And how I've stayed between you and danger a thousand times? And how I've never treated you otherwise than as a man? And how I've given you the love of a blood-brother to take the place of the brother who died? And how I've kept you in a clean and pure respect such as a man can only give once in his life—and then only to his dearest friend? She wouldn't listen—even when you talked to her like this?”
“For God's sake—Pierre!”
“Ah, but you talked well enough to pave the way for me. You talked so eloquently that with a little more persuasion from me she will know and understand. Come, I must be gone after her. Which way did she ride—up or down the valley?”
“You could talk to her forever and she'd never listen. Pierre, I told her that I was—your woman—that you'd told me of your scenes with her—and that we'd laughed at them together.”
She covered her eyes and crouched, waiting for the wrath that would fall on her, but he only smiled bitterly on the bowed head, saying: “Why have I waited so long to hear you say what I knew already? I suppose because I wouldn't believe until I heard the whole abominable truth from your own lips. Jack, why did you do it?”
“Won't you see? Because I've loved you always, Pierre!”
“Love—you—your tiger-heart? No, but you were like a cruel, selfish child. You were jealous because you didn't want the toy taken away. I knew it. I knew that even if I rode after her it would be hopeless. Oh, God, how
