The girl spoke softly and rapidly, her face flushing.
"Do I not know all your thoughts?" she continued. "I who have sat at your side through the long days of your sickness and listened to the voice of the fever-spirit? At such times the heart cannot lie, and the lips speak the truth."
She leaned closer, and unconsciously a slender, white-brown hand fell upon his, and the soft, tapering fingers closed upon his own. A delicious thrill passed through his body at the touch.
As he looked into the beautiful face so close to his, with the white flash of pearly teeth in the play of the red lips, the eyes luminous, like twin stars, a strange, numbing loneliness overcame him.
She was speaking in a voice that sounded soothing and far away, so that he could not make out the words. Slowly his eyelids closed, blotting out the face—and he slept.
CHAPTER XXIX
A BUCKSKIN HUNTING-SHIRT
The days of his convalescence in the camp of the Lacombies were days fraught with mingled emotions in the heart of Bill Carmody.
Old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta treated him with cold deference, anticipating his needs with a sagacity that was almost uncanny. She appeared hardly to be aware of his presence, yet many times the man felt, without seeing, the deep, burning gaze of the undimmed, black eyes.