"But, look here, they'll be wondering where you are," Dickson interrupted. "You'll have to ride right round by the boundary now——"
"I shan't come any more," the girl exclaimed. "Not till—till after. I know you told lies, and if you don't come to me before then, I'll know sure; and then"—she looked him straight in the face, with an ugly gleam and flash in her dark eyes that held his like a snake's holds a bird's—"then I'll come, and—and—then I'll come for you. I came here to tell you that. It's your last chance. You men don't know what women are. There are some things you can't understand."
"Don't be a fool," he said once more, as he held out his arms and touched her.
She stepped back with her mouth hardening and the gleam still in her eyes.
"No, that's finished," she said. "I know you now—I hate you now—and I'm going to hurt you just where I can—most."
He laughed uneasily, and looked away for a moment from the fascination of the gleaming eyes, and as though it was he who had broken the spell, the girl's face changed. With the exception of the eyes all her features had been passive up to that moment, but then it was as though a reservoir of passion had suddenly broken out and flooded over her face. He gave one scared look at it and stepped back from her.
"Where I can hurt you—most," she repeated in a voice that quivered.
He edged away towards his horse and heard her push through the bushes to hers. Then he heard the bushes crash as the horse charged through them, and, turning, he saw her riding at a full gallop away down the straight stretch of the open.
He mounted his own horse and rode slowly back to the station, striving to form some plan in his mind by which he could explain matters to Ailleen, or at least prevent her from telling his mother of what had transpired. When he arrived at the house, he found Ailleen sitting alone on the verandah.
"Funny how Nellie rode over to-day, just as you were talking about her, wasn't it?" he asked, as he came up beside her.