“Are you goin’ to bust everythin’ up between us?” he asked quietly. “Is that the way you feel? Did I have to camp right on your trail to hold you?”
“It’s already busted,” Ivy snapped.
She shook herself free of his hands, backed away a step or two, looking at Robin with a dumb implacable resentment smoldering in her eyes. She turned to a shelf on the wall, took something out of a box and handed it to Robin without a word. It was the little diamond he had given her—their engagement ring. Robin held it in the palm of his hand. A pang of sadness, mingled with a touch of anger stabbed him.
“Maybe it’ll do for another girl,” Ivy said spitefully. “I don’t need it no more.”
“Neither do I,” he said hotly, and flung the ring into the dead ash of the fireplace. For a moment they stared at the puff of ashes where it fell, at each other. The girl’s lips quivered. Robin turned on his heel and walked out of the house.
Old Mayne still leaned against the stable wall. Robin gathered up his reins, turned to ask a question.
“Ivy goin’ to marry Steele?”
He shot the words at Mayne with a harshness that made the old man start.
“I reckon so,” he said apologetically. “I kain’t help it.”
“Nobody said you could,” Robin flung over his shoulder as he reached for his stirrup.