“You are—” she began, but Lois Ann was between her and Nella-Rose.
“Go!” she commanded with terrible scorn. “Go! You are not fit to touch them. Go! Dying or mad—the girl belongs to me and not to such as has viper blood in their veins. Go!” And Marg went with the sound of Nella-Rose’s crooning to her child ringing in her ears.
Things happened dramatically after that in the deep woods. Marg kept the secret of the Hollow cabin in her seething heart. She was frightened, fearing her father or Jed might discover Nella-Rose. But she was, at times, filled with a strange longing to see her sister and touch that wonderful thing that lay on the guilty mother-breast.
Was Nella-Rose forever to have the glory even in her shame, while she, Marg, with all the rights of womanhood, could hold no hope of maternity?
For one reason or another Marg often stole to the woods as near the Hollow as she dared to go. She hoped for news but none came; and it was late August when, one sunny noon, she confronted Burke Lawson!
Lawson’s face was strange and awful to look on. Marg drew away from him in fear. She could not know but Burke had had a terrific experience that day and he was on the path for revenge and any one in his way must suffer. Freed at last from his captivity, he had travelled across the range and straight to Jim White. And the sheriff, ready for the recreant, greeted him without mercy, judging him guilty until he proved himself otherwise.
“What you done with Nella-Rose?” he asked, standing before Burke with slow fire in his deep eyes.
Lawson could never have been the man he was if he were not capable of holding his own council and warding off attack.
“What makes you think I’ve done anything with her?” he asked.
“None o’ that, Burke Lawson,” Jim warned. “I’ve been yo’ friend, but I swear I’ll toss yo’ ter the dogs, as is after you, with as little feelin’ as I would if yo’ were a chunk o’ dead meat—if you’ve harmed that lil’ gal.”