She would call him back and tell him that she cared no more for the "furriner "than she did for him.She started from the steps,but paused,straining her eyes through the darkness.It was too late,and,with a helpless little cry,she began pacing the porch.She had scarcely heard what was said after the mountaineer's first accusation,so completely had that enthralled her mind;now fragments came back to her.There was something about a picture-ah!she remembered that picture.Passing through the camp one afternoon,she had glanced in at a window and had seen a rifle once her own.Turning in rapid wonder about the room,her eye lighted upon a picture on a table near the window.She had felt the refined beauty of the girl,and it had impressed her with the same timidity that Clayton had when she first knew him.
Fascinated,she had looked till a -movement in the room made her shrink away.But the face had clung in her memory ever since,and now it came before her vividly.Clayton was in love with her.
Well,what did that matter to her?
There was more that Raines said."Goin'away."Raines meant the "furriner,"of course.How did he know?Why had Clayton not told her?She did not believe it.But why not?He had once told her that he would go away some time;why not now?But why-why did not Clayton tell her?Perhaps he was going to her.She almost stretched out her hands in a sudden,fierce desire to clutch the round throat and sink her nails into the soft flesh that rose before her mind.She had forgotten that he had ever told her that he must go away,so little had it impressed her at the time.She had never thought of a possible change in their relations or in their lives.She tried to think what her life would be after he was gone,and she was frightened;she could not imagine her old life resumed.When Clayton came,it was as though she had risen from sleep in a dream,and had lived in it thereafter without questioning its reality.
Into his hands she had delivered her life and herself with the undoubting faith of a child.She had never thought of their relations at all.Now the awakening had come.The dream was shattered.For the first time her eye was turned inward,where a flood of light brought into terrible distinctness the tumult that began to rage so suddenly within.
One hope only flashed into her brain-perhaps Raines was mistaken.But even then,if he were,Clayton must go some time;he had told her that.On this fact every thought became centred.It was no longer how he came,the richness of the new life he had shown her,the barrenness of the old,Raines's accusation,the shame of it-the shame of being pointed out and laughed at after Clayton's departure;it was no longer helpless wonder at the fierce emotions racking her for the first time:her whole being was absorbed in the realization which slowly forced itself into her heart and brain-some day he must go away;some day she must lose him.
She lifted her hands to her head in a dazed,ineffectual way.The moonlight grew faint before her eyes;mountain,sky,and mist were in-distinguishably blurred;and the girl sank down upon her trembling knees,down till she lay crouched on the floor with her tearless face in her arms.
The moon rose high above her and sank down the west.The shadows shortened and crept back to the woods,night noises grew fainter,and the mists floated up from the valley and Clung around the mountain-tops;but she stirred only when a querulous voice came from within the cabin.
"Easter,"it said,"ef Sherd Raines air gone,y'u better come in to bed.Y'u've got a lot o'work to do to-morrer."The voice called her to the homely duties that had once filled her life and must fill it again.It was a summons to begin anew a life that was dead,and the girl lifted her haggard face in answer and rose wearily.
