Ten minutes later Louise stood in front of the Master of Tralee, and the Master of Tralee filled the doorway. “What you want here?” he asked of her with blurred rage in his voice.
“I want to go to my room,” Louise answered quietly but firmly. “Please stand aside.”
Now that Louise was face to face with her foe, a new spirit had suddenly possessed her; and standing beside his broncho, a hand on its neck, Orlando almost smiled, for this was Louise with a new nature. There was defiance and courage in her face, not the apprehension which had almost overwhelmed her as they started back to Tralee, having been rescued by the search-party from Slow Down Ranch. The night had done something to Louise which was making itself felt.
“You think you can come back here after what you’ve done—after where you’ve been—the likes of you!” Mazarine snarled unmoving. “You think you can!”
Louise turned swiftly to look at Orlando and the three men, one riding and two in the wagon, as though to call them in evidence of her innocence; but there came to her eyes a sudden fire of courage, and she turned again to Mazarine and said:
“I’m your wife by the law—just as much your wife to-day as yesterday. You treat me before strangers as if I were a criminal. I’m not going to be treated that way. I’ve got my rights. Stand back and let me in—stand back, Joel Mazarine,” she said, and she took a step forward, child though she was, as if she would strike him. Something had transformed her.
To Orlando she seemed scarcely real. The shrinking, colourless child of a few weeks had suddenly become a woman—and such a woman!
“I’ll tell you in my own time where I’ve been and what I’ve done,” she continued. “I want to go upstairs. Stand out of the doorway.”
There was a movement behind her. A man in the wagon and the one on his horse seemed to grow angry and threatening. The ranchman dropped from his horse. Only Orlando stood cool, quiet and ominously watchful. Mazarine did not fail to notice the movement of the two men.
Presently Orlando’s voice said slowly and calmly: “Stand back, Mazarine. Let her go to her room. This is a free country, and she’s free in her own house. It’s her house until you’ve proved she’s got no right there.” Then he added with sharp insistence and menace: “Stand back—damn you, Mazarine!”