She looked up into his set face and smiled.
"Can I help you say it?" she inquired, and he burst out passionately, "Until he come, you seemed to like me. Now you don't think of nobody else but jest him ... and I hates him."
"If it's hatred you want to talk about," she said, reproachfully, "I don't think I can help you after all."
"Hatred of him," he hastened to explain. "I've done lived in the woods—an' I ain't never learned pretty graces ... but I can't live without you, an' if he comes betwixt us...."
The girl raised a hand.
"Peter," she said, slowly, "we've been good friends, you and I. I want to go on being good friends with you ... but that's all I can say."
"And him," demanded the young man, with white cheeks and passion-shaken voice, "what of him?"
"He asked me an hour ago," she answered, frankly. "We're going to be married."
The face of the backwoodsman worked spasmodically for a moment with an agitation against which his stoic training was no defense. When his passion permitted speech he said briefly, "I wishes ye joy of him—damn him!"
Then he wheeled and disappeared in the tangle.