"Oh, bring him in and put him on the bed there, and I'll try and do something for him," Mary cried, her eyes flying from the fallen body to the man who stood in the doorway.
He did as she asked and turned to her with watchful eyes.
"You hold the child for me while I bathe his head," she said, "it may bring him to."
She thrust Davey into his arms.
"Sit down, won't you?" she asked, smiling towards him, as she set some water on the fire and poured some more into a basin.
She tore up a piece of old linen and began very gently to bathe the unconscious man's head. He groaned as the pain stirred again. She spoke to him, saying that the wound would mend the sooner for being cleansed, and that it was a wonder he was alive at all with the state it was in. Sitting in Donald's chair, holding Davey in his arms, tightly, clumsily, the tall man watched her; his face turned to, and from her, as his eyes wandered apprehensively about the hut, and to the door.
"Here, ma'am," he said at last, snarling over the words, "Where's your man? I've no notion for him to come in and corner us if that's your game."
"He's away," she replied, "and will not be back—perhaps for a day or two."
He stared at her.
"I should never have thought Davey would be so good with a stranger," she added, her eyes travelling from Davey's round head on his arm to the man's dark face, and the eyes that leapt and glittered in it. She smiled into them.