Mabyn, misunderstanding, was vastly lifted up by this word of Natalie's, and the writhing ego within hastened to repair the horrid breach Garth had made. He approached her, hidden by her horse from Garth.
"Oh, Natalie!" he gabbled whiningly; "don't listen to him. He's a low cur! But he can't make trouble between you and me! Send him away! Natalie, I seem to have acted badly; but I can explain everything! Circumstances were all against me! In my heart I've never swerved from you! I dream of you every night in my lonesomeness! Wherever I look I see your face before my eyes!"
It was the old trick of passionate speech; Natalie remembered the very words of old; but the man—she averted her head from the hideous spectacle. She was afraid to move or cry out, sure that Garth in his present mind would kill him if he heard.
Mabyn, conceiving nothing of the sublime irony of the figure he made, continued to plead. "Natalie, don't turn away from me! You took me for better or worse, remember! You found me at a disadvantage to-day; I don't look like this ordinarily. And you can make whatever you like of me! Remember the old days at home! I am the same man—Bert—your Bert! Look—he can't see us—I kneel to you as I did then!"
And down he went on his knees, stretching out his arms to her.
There was an odd, slight sound behind him. They both looked—and froze in the attitude of looking. Garth from his station, seeing the new look of horror overspread Natalie's face, spurred to join her.
There, clinging to the corner of the cabin for support, stood the figure of a woman. Her brown skin was blanched to a livid yellow; and her eyes were the eyes of one dead from a shock. She swayed forward from the waist as if her backbone could no longer support her. At her feet a tin pail emptied wild cherries on the ground.
Mabyn scrambled to his feet, shamed, chagrined, furious. "What do you want around here?" he cried brutally—even now seeking to outface her.
The piteous, stricken girl moistened her lips; and essayed more than once to speak, before any words came. "'Erbe't, who is this woman?" she said quite simply at last.