No sooner had the anger-impelled words left his lips than Donald felt heartily ashamed of himself, and wished that he might unsay them. Half afraid, he turned his eyes toward the girl to find his fears realized. Her eyes were flaming from her deathly white face, and a mingled look of hurt pride and bitter scorn struggled for supremacy on her lips.
"Yo' ... yo' think I would accept yo'r charity?" she cried. "Yo' think I would take money gifts from any man? I allows ter pay ye both every cent uv thet money; and I hates ye ... I hates ye both."
For an instant she stood trembling with anger and mortification, then turned and sped up the bank and away into the woods.
Judd sank down with a muffled groan, but Donald, shocked at the result of his ill-advised and hasty words, forgot his late adversary and sprang in pursuit, crying, "Smiles. Dear child, wait. I want to talk with you, to explain...."
He ran over rock and crag blunderingly into the forest in the direction she had taken, and, as he disappeared, Mike, who, during the combat, had continually raged at his leash in futile frenzy, made a last desperate effort, snapped the leather collar, although the effort drew a yelp of pain from him, and tore after him.
He passed his master and overtook the fleeing girl, sagaciously sensing the situation; but, as she paid no heed to his appealing barks and tugs at her skirt, but merely ran the faster, he turned back to await his lord. Body-weary and discomforted, Donald likewise gave up the chase as the sound of Smiles' flight grew more distant and died away.
Eventually she too dropped into a walk, and finally stopped altogether, with a deep, gasping sob. Throwing herself down at the foot of an ancient tree, she pressed her flushed face hard against the rough bark, her mind in a wretched turmoil.
For the first time in Smiles' young life her eyes had been opened, and she had looked upon the brute passions of men, had tasted the bitter gall of trust abused, had felt an anger which brought with it the desire to hurt another as she herself had been hurt.
Stabbed to the quick of her soul, she lay on the moss-bedded roots of the impassive tree, her body quivering with soundless, shuddering sobs.
She hated herself, the two men—and Judd less than Donald, for she had known and excused his shortcomings, while in her childish eyes Dr. MacDonald had been all that was noble, a super-man, an idol whose feet were now clay. She hated the world where such things were possible.