"I don't know who you mean, Agnes."
"No? I think you're—"
"I was on my way over the range. I got lost in the storm and stumbled in here." He looked out. "It's let up some now. Maybe I could find my way back to town—you must have a doctor."
"I don't want a doctor! I want to go—with my baby. And I don't want him to know—understand that—" with a struggle she raised to one elbow, eyes suddenly blazing with the flashes of her disordered brain, features strained and excited. "I don't want him to know! He ran away and left me for three days. The fire went out—my baby—" hysterical laughter broke from her dry lips—"My baby died, and still he didn't come. He—"
"Agnes!" Houston grasped her hands. "Try to control yourself! Maybe he couldn't get back. The storm—"
"Yes, the storm! It's always the storm! We would have been married—but there was the storm. He couldn't marry me months ago—when I found out—and when I came back out here! He couldn't marry me then. 'Wait'; that's what he always said—'wait—' and I waited. Now—" then the voice trailed off—"it's been three days. He promised to be back. But—"
Houston sought to end the repetition.
"Perhaps I could find him and bring him here."
But it was useless. The woman drifted back to her rambling statements. Laughter and tears followed one another in quick succession; the breaking of restraint had come at last. At last she turned, and staring with glazed eyes into those of Houston, burst forth.
"You hate me, don't you?"