A pause followed and he looked about the room again calculatingly; then started as though he had forgotten something.
"But what I brought you in here for was to tell you that this is yours, to do what you want with ... you ..."
His words brought them back to the situation they confronted and an embarrassed silence followed.
"I don't feel right, driving you out like this," Ann protested, at length.
"But don't you understand? Nobody's ever been in here, but Tim, who's dead, an' you. You're th' first person I've ever asked to stay in here. I'd like it ... to think you'd been in here ... stayin'.... It's you who 're doin' th' favor...."
He ended in a lowered tone and was so intent, so keen in his desire that Ann looked on him with a queer little feeling of misgiving. Every now and then she had encountered those phases of him for which she could not account, which made her doubt and, for the instant, fear him. But, after she had searched his face and found there nothing but the sincere concern for her welfare, she knew that his motive was of the highest, that he thought only of her, and she answered,
"Why, I'll be glad to stay here, in your room."
He turned and walked into the kitchen, swinging one hand.
"I'll be driftin'," he said, when she followed, forcing himself to a brusque manner which disarmed her.
"You ask Ned to water th' horses. I'm ridin' th' pinto to town. I'll be back to-morrow sometime."