"Will you do it?" said Mabyn eagerly.
Rina remained silent.
Mabyn cursed her under his breath. "I believe this smooth-faced young whelp has cast an eye on you too," he snarled. "You're false to me!"
A low cry was forced from Rina's lips; she made a rapid move; and Garth understood that she had thrown herself at the man's feet. "'Erbe't, you know you don' speak true," she whispered painfully. "You my 'osban'! All men I hate, but you!"
"Then do what I tell you," snarled Mabyn.
"'Erbe't!" she pleaded rapidly and urgently. "Let them go! What have they got to do with us? To-morrow I go to him. I tell him how to mak' her well. The man will give me a horse and things. An' you and I will ride to the Rice River people. They are my people. They will give me a gun. We will be so ver' happy, and not think of this man and this woman any more!"
"You can go, and be damned to you!" said Mabyn sullenly. "I stay on my own place!"
Garth understood then, that she drew very close to the man, lavish in the expression of her sad love and timid caresses, in a desperate effort to move him. He could not hear it all; but his cheeks burned to be the intruder on such an exposure of a woman's soul—a white soul, he thought, whatever the colour of her skin.
Mabyn was utterly insensible to it all. In the end he became impatient, and flung her away from him with an oath. She fell to the ground with a soft thud; and for a while there was no other sound, but the dreadful, low catch of her breath, as she sought to strangle her sobs.
"'Erbe't, if you no love me I die," she breathed.