“Don’t try to read a misunderstanding into my words,” said he, his voice shaking. Then he seemed to break his stiff, controlled pose as if it had been 63 a coating of ice, and expand into a trembling, white-hot man in a moment. “God’s name, girl! Say something, say something! You know where that glove was found?”
“No; and I shall not ask you, Major King.”
“But I demand of you to know how it came in that man’s possession! Tell me that—tell me!”
He stood before her, very near to her. His hands were shaking, his eyes gleaming with fury.
“I might ask you with as much reason how it came in yours,” she told him, resentful of his angry demand.
“A messenger arrived with it an hour ago.”
“For you, Major King?”
“For me, certainly.”
She had no need to ask him whence the messenger came. She could see the horsemen returning to the ranchhouse by the river in the gray morning light, in the triumph of their successful hunt. Alan Macdonald had fallen. It had been Nola’s hand that had dispatched this evidence of what she could but guess to be the disloyalty of Frances to her betrothed. If Nola had hoped to make a case with the major, Frances felt she had succeeded better than she knew.
“Then there is nothing more to be said, Major King,” said she, after a little wait.