She dared not answer. He was trembling with hurt pride and rage.
"You went to her—she thought I sent you—that I've grown ashamed of my own father, and that I want to beg her to take me back? Is that what she thinks?"
He struck his hand across his forehead and groaned.
"God! I'd rather die than have her think it for a minute. Kate, how could you do it? I'd have trusted you always to do the right thing and the proud thing—and here you've shamed me!"
He turned to the horse, and El Sangre stepped out of the stall and into a shaft of sunlight that burned on him like blood-red fire. And beside him young Terry Hollis, straight as a pine, and as strong—a glorious figure. It broke her heart to see him, knowing what was coming.
"Terry, if you ride down yonder, you're going to a dog's death! I swear you are, Terry!"
She stretched out her arms to him; but he turned to her with his hand on the pommel, and his face was like iron.
"I've made my choice. Will you stand aside, Kate?"
"You're set on going? Nothing will change you? But I tell you, I'm going to change you! I'm only a girl. And I can't stop you with a girl's weapons. I'll do it with a man's. Terry, take the saddle off that horse! And promise me you'll stay here till Elizabeth Cornish comes!"
"Elizabeth Cornish?" He laughed bitterly. "When she conies, I'll be a hundred miles away, and bound farther off. That's final."