Bill looked cunning and drawing close whispered:
“Her—and him, I seed ’im, back in the sticks! Her—and him!” Then he laughed his foolish laugh.
“I thought as much!” Merrivale nodded, with the trouble a good man knows at times in his eyes; but his faith in Burke coming to his aid. “You mean—Lawson?” he asked.
Bill nodded foolishly.
“Then keep yo’ mouth shut!” warned Merrivale. “If I hear yo’ gabbing—I’ll flax the hide o’ yo’, sure as I keep store.”
CHAPTER XIII
A month, then two, passed in the desolate cabin in the Hollow. Winter clutched and held Pine Cone Settlement in a deadly grip. Old people died and little children were born. Lois Ann, when it was physically possible, got to the homes of suffering and eased the women, while she berated the men for bringing poor souls to such dread passes. But always Nella-Rose hid and shrank from sight. No need, now, to warn her. A new and terrible look had come into her eyes, and when Lois Ann saw that creeping terror she knew that her hour had come. To save Nella-Rose, she believed, she must lay low every illusion and, with keen and deliberate force, she pressed the apple of the knowledge of life between the girlish lips. The bitter truth at last ate its way into the girl’s soul and gradually hate, such as she had never conceived, grew and consumed her.
“She will not die,” thought the old woman watching her day by day.
And Nella-Rose did not die, at least not outwardly, but in her, as in Truedale, the fine, first glow of pure faith and passion, untouched by the world’s interpretation, faded and shrivelled forever.