“Two,” she acknowledged, and now he noticed that with the dissolution of tears a flush of color was returning into her cheeks.
“And those—”
“One it is impossible for you to know; the other, if I tell you, will make you despise me. I am sure of that.”
“It has to do with John Graham?”
She bowed her head. “Yes, with John Graham.”
For the first time long lashes hid her eyes from him, and for a moment it seemed that her resolution was gone and she stood stricken by the import of the thing that lay behind his question; yet her cheeks flamed red instead of paling, and when she looked at him again, her eyes burned with a lustrous fire.
“John Graham,” she repeated. “The man you hate and want to kill.”
Slowly he turned toward the door. “I am leaving immediately after dinner to inspect the herds up in the foothills,” he said. “And you—are welcome here.”
He caught the swift intake of her breath as he paused for an instant at the door, and saw the new light that leaped into her eyes.
“Thank you, Alan Holt,” she cried softly, “Oh, I thank you!!”