“I am talking to one,” she said, her eyes blazing with impotent anger.
“I thought you was meaning me,” he said, without resentment. “I reckon I’ve got it coming to me. But at the same time that isn’t exactly the way to talk to your——” He hesitated and smiled oddly, apparently aware that he had made a mistake in referring to his crime against her. He hastened to repair it. “Your rescuer,” he corrected.
However, she saw through the artifice, and the bitterness in her voice grew more pronounced. “It is needless for you to remind me of our relationship,” she said; “I am not likely to forget.”
“Have you told your father yet?”
In his voice was the quiet scorn and the peculiar, repressed venom which she had detected when he had referred to her father during that other occasion at the crossing. It mystified her, and yet within the past few days she had felt this scorn herself and knew that it was not remarkable. Undoubtedly he, having had much experience with men, had been able to see through Langford’s mask and knew him for what he was. For the first time in her life she experienced a sensation of embarrassed guilt over hearing her name linked with Langford’s, and she looked defiantly at Dakota.
“I have not told him,” she said. “I won’t tell him. I told you that before—I do not care to undergo the humiliation of hearing my name mentioned in the same breath with yours. And if you do not already know it, I want to tell you that David Langford is not my father; my real father died a long time ago, and Langford is only my stepfather.”
A sudden moisture was in her eyes and she did not see Dakota start, did not observe the queer pallor that spread over his face, failed to detect the odd light in his eyes. However, she heard his voice—sharp in tone and filled with genuine astonishment.
“Your stepfather?” He had spurred his pony beside hers and looking up she saw that his face had suddenly grown stern and grim. “Do you mean that?” he demanded half angrily. “Why didn’t you tell me that before? Why didn’t you tell me when—the night I married you?”
“Would it have made any difference to you?” she said bitterly. “Does it make any difference now? You have treated me like a savage; you are treating me like one now. I—I haven’t any friends at all,” she continued, her voice breaking slightly, as she suddenly realized her entire helplessness before the combined evilness of Duncan, her father, and the man who sat on his pony beside her. A sob shook her, and her hands went to her face, covering her eyes.
She sat there for a time, shuddering, and watching her closely, Dakota’s face grew slowly pale, and grim, hard lines came into his lips.