“Where’s ‘Firebrand’ now?” said a voice.
“Sleepin’. The clerk in the Castle says he’s makin’ up for lost time.”
She did not bother to try to see the owners of the voices; her gaze was on the plains, far and vast; and the sky, clear, with a pearly shimmer that dazzled her. She closed her eyes. She could not have told how long she slept. She awoke to the light touch of the porter, and she saw Trevison standing in the open doorway of the car.
The dust of the battle had been removed. An admiring barber had worked carefully over him; a doctor had mended his arm. Except for a noticeable thinness of the face, and a certain drawn expression of the eyes, he was the same Trevison who had spoken so frankly to her one day out on the plains when he had taken her into his confidence. In the look that he gave her now was the same frankness, clouded a little, she thought, by some emotion—which she could not fathom.
“I have come to apologize,” he said; “for various unjust thoughts with which I have been obsessed.” Before she could reply he had taken two or three swift steps and was standing over her, and was speaking again, his voice vibrant and regretful: “I ought to have known better than to think—what I did—of you. I have no excuses to make, except that I was insane with a fear that my ten years of labor and lonesomeness were to be wasted. I have just had a talk with Hester Harvey, and she has shown me what a fool I have been. She—”
Rosalind got up, laughing lowly, tremulously. “I talked with Hester this morning. And I think—”
“She told you—” he began, his voice leaping.
“Many things.” She looked straight at him, her eyes glowing, but they drooped under the heat of his. “You don’t need to feel elated over it—there were two of us.” She felt that the surge of joy that ran over her would have shown in her face had it not been for a sudden recollection of what the Vigilantes had done that morning. That recollection paled her cheeks and froze the smile on her lips.
He was watching her closely and saw her face harden. A shadow passed over his own. He thought he could see the hopelessness of staying longer. “A woman’s love,” he said, gloomily, “is a wonderful thing. It clings through trouble and tragedy—never faltering.” She looked at him, startled, trying to solve the enigma of this speech. He laughed, bitterly. “That’s what makes a woman superior to mere man. Love exalts her. It makes a savage of a man. I suppose it is ‘good-bye.’” He held out a hand to her and she took it, holding it limply, looking at him in wonderment, her heart heavy with regret. “I wish you luck and happiness,” he said. “Corrigan is a man in spite of—of many faults. You can redeem him; you—”
“Is a man!” Her hand tightened on his; he could feel her tremble. “Why—why—I thought—Didn’t they—”