“Oh, that’s the way the land lies, is it?” he asked, with an ugly leer at her. “And that is why you were playing ’meet me by moonlight alone,’ that night when I saw you together at the spring. Well, I think your money might help you to some one besides a married man.”
“A married man?” she gasped. “Dan!”
“Dan, it is,” he answered, insolently. “But you needn’t faint away on that account. I have other use for you—I want some money.”
“You are telling that lie about him because you think it will trouble me,” she said, regarding his painted face closely and giving no heed to his demand. “You know it is not true.”
“About the marriage? I’ll swear—”
“I would not believe your oath for anything.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t? Well, now, what if I prove to you, right in this camp, that I know his wife?”
“His wife?” She sat down on the side of the couch, and all the cabin seemed whirling around her. 254
“Well—a girl he married. You may call her what you please. She had been called a good many things before he picked her up. Humph! Now that he has struck it rich, some one ought to let her know. She’d make the dollars fly.”
“It is not true! It is not true!” she murmured to herself, as if by the words she could drive away the possibility of it.