lips a little parted in a faint smile, and the deep, glowing eyes full of a wonderful liquid fire; and he realized as he had never done before the wild, strange beauty of the girl who was stealing like a ghost to his side. Then he closed his eyes and breathed heavily.
She stooped down till her warm breath fell upon his bronzed, sunburnt cheek. Then, seeing that he made no movement, she gave a wistful little sigh, and kissed him so lightly that her lips seemed scarcely to brush his. Still he did not move, or give any sign of wakefulness. Presently he felt her sink down by his side, and her head drooped upon his shoulder. In a few moments she was asleep. As soon as he was sure of it, he threw the rug over her, and rising softly, walked away in the darkness.
III. A WESTERN LOVE
By six o’clock in the morning a bright sun, mounting into a sky of dazzling clearness, began to make its power felt. An hour later the Englishman, who had been working on his claim since the first gray streaks of dawn, took off his clothes and plunged into a deep pool of the river. Emerging, he dried himself leisurely, dressed, and scrambled up the gorge side to the small platform of green turf on which he had built his cabin.
His guest was at the door in her cowboy’s clothes, patched and mended up. She welcomed him with a little cry of delight, and then a swift, deep blush, as she saw his lips part with amusement.
“That’s real mean!” she declared. “It’s bad enough to have to wear such things, without being laughed at. I shall go and put on my gown!”
He laughed outright, pushing her before him into the cabin, and glancing apprehensively down into the valley, and across to the opposite shanty. There was no one in sight.
“You won’t do anything of the sort, if you please,” he said decidedly. “You look very well as you are. Come and let’s get some breakfast. I’m starving!”
“It’s ready and waiting—all that I can find. Bryan, this is the most elegant place in the world. I never saw anything half so beautiful.”
He turned round and stood by her side in the doorway, looking across the valley to where a dim blue haze shrouded the distant mountain-tops. In the pure, fine air all colours seemed intensified—the green of the alder and hazel-trees rising sharp and clear against the sky, and the deeper shade of the broad belt of pine-trees which fringed the mountain’s side; a great flowering cactus with bright scarlet blossoms drooped over the precipice below, and the rocks and bushes were starred with flowers of strange and brilliant colours growing out of every crack and in every corner. The dry morning air was sweet, too, with the perfume of many herbs and flowers, and far down in the valley the sun-smitten river gleamed like a bed of silver. The girl, to whom nature in such a guise as this was a revelation, stood there with bright, thoughtful eyes, and with the languid morning breeze stealing through her dark wavy hair, no longer coiled up and concealed. She was feeling the touch of a new power in the world, a new sensation. Hereafter she sometimes associated a new phase of life into which she was to pass, with this morning.
“I like this!” she said softly. “It’s better than the city. I’d like to live here always!”
The Englishman frowned.
“You’d be tired of it in a week, Myra. No shops, no theatre, no drives in the park! I doubt whether you’d stand it for a week. Come along, and let’s see what you’ve made of breakfast.”
The girl turned away with a sigh, and followed him into the shanty.
“I’ve found some tea,” she said, “and some bacon—I cooked that. The stove don’t go very well; guess it wants cleaning.”
“That’s all right. Things look real tidy for once. Sit down and let us have some breakfast. Afterwards I want to talk to you.”
She obeyed Him in silence. Her cheeks had suddenly grown pale again. She ate but little, watching her companion most of the time. What was he going to do with her? Would he send her back after all—away from him, and back to the life she hated with a great soul-shuddering hate? Oh, he would not be so cruel as that; surely he would not! Go back to that great hideous city with its garishness and glitter, its cheap vice and all its brazen show of falseness and iniquity! She had drifted there on the broad bosom of an unkind fate; a fate which should surely have marked her out for better things. Vice had no allurements for her. The pleasures of the demi-monde, the cheap theatre and the tawdry dancing saloon, were flavourless to her. She thought of them now as she gazed out at the glorious blue sky, and the panorama of bold and magnificent scenery, with a shudder which came from her very soul. The sweet scented breeze which swept in through the open doorway, tasted to her jaded senses like the elixir of life. A passionate disgust of cities and all their ways leaped up within her. From that moment the life of the past had become impossible to her. She had been born one of nature’s children outside the ken of cities, almost of civilization, and it was but the return to an old allegiance.
The Englishman had finished his breakfast, calmly unconscious of all that was passing through the mind of his companion. He lit a pipe, dragged the form into the sunshine, and motioned her to sit at the other end of it.
“Myra,” he said gently, after a few moments’ meditative silence, “you’ve done me a real good turn. You’ve shown uncommon grit, and you’ve accomplished a thing which a good many men wouldn’t have cared about. I haven’t said much about it; I was so surprised to see you last night that you might have thought I wasn’t grateful. But I am. I want to show it, if I can. I want to repay you so far as a man is able to repay a service of that sort; and so—”
“I want no repayment—only to stop right here,” she interrupted breathlessly. “I should be perfectly happy. I could look after things and cook for you, and keep the place clean, and—oh, Bryan, for God’s sake, let me stop! You were fond of me once—anyway, you used to tell me so. Don’t drive me away! I don’t care how you treat me. I will be your slave if you like—nothing more. Only don’t send me back! Let me stay, Bryan! Do let me stay!”
She had slipped from the form on to the ground, and was kneeling at his feet, her eyes bright with tears, and the colour coming and going in her cheeks. She even ventured to lay her arms imploringly on his shoulders, and turn them round his neck. The Englishman gently unwound her fingers, retaining possession of one of her hands. He looked down into her flushed face with a troubled shade in his own.
“Myra, it wouldn’t do,” he said kindly. “You’ll think me a brute, of course. Dare say I am. But I want you to leave here with the expressman, the day after to-morrow, and go right back to San Francisco. I can’t keep you here, little woman, if I wanted to; and if I could, I wouldn’t, so there!”
Her bosom heaved. She drew herself right away from him, and stood leaning against the wall, with a crimson colour in her cheeks and her eyes afire.
“You—you don’t care for me any more, then? It was true, what I feared! You came here to get rid of me. You were tired, you wanted to escape.”
“Steady, Myra. You know that’s not right. I came here for two reasons. First, to make money. Secondly, because I was satisfied that the man whom I had come from England to find, was not in San Francisco. I had no trace of him, nothing to go by. I thought to myself that if he was the restless sort of chap every one made him out to be, he would most likely be off on the gold fever, like the rest of them. That’s why I came, Myra. It’s all very well for me here. I’m a rough sort of chap, and I can find my
