The man paused. "I did almost forget him—and after fifteen years!"
"Let us kill him to-night; then we will go to the soldier together, side by side—I am your woman. Necia will look after the little ones."
Gale stared at her, and as he gazed the red pigment underneath her skin, the straight-hanging, mane-like hair, the gaudy shawl she never went without, the shapeless, skin-shod feet, the slovenly, ill-fitting garb of a mis-cast woman vanished, and he saw her as she was on a day long past, a slim, shy, silent creature, with great, watchful, trusting eyes and a soul unspoiled. No woman had ever been so loyal, so uncomplaining. He had robbed her of her people and her gods. He had shifted hither and yon at the call of his uncertain fortune, or at a sign of that lurking fear that always dogged him, and she had never left his side, never questioned, never doubted, but always served him like a slave, without asking for a part in that other love, without sharing in the caresses he had consecrated to a woman she had never seen.
"By Heaven! You're game, Alluna, but there's a limit even to what I can take from you," he said, at last. "I don't ever seem to have noticed it before, but there is. No! I've got to do this thing alone to-night, all of it, for you have no place in it, and I can't let the little girl go on like this. The sooner that soldier knows the better." He leaned down and touched her brown mouth with his grizzled lips. "Thank you, Alluna, for making a man of me when I'd nearly forgotten. Now you stay here." He knew he could count on her obedience, and so he left her. When he had gone she drew the shawl up over her face and crouched in the doorway, straining her eyes after him through the dark. In time she began to rock and sway, and then to chant, until the night moaned with the death-song of her people.
Necia had no idea whither she went; her only thought was to flee from her kin, who could not understand, to hide under cover in some solitary place, to let the darkness swallow her up, so that she might give way to her grief and be just a poor, weak woman. So, with a dull and aching heart, she wandered, bareheaded, bare-necked, half-demented, and wholly oblivious to her surroundings, without sense of her incongruous attire or of the water that squeezed up through the soggy moss at her tread and soaked her frail slippers. On she stumbled blindly through the murk like some fair creature of light cast out and banished.
The night was cloudy and a wind came sighing from the north, tossing the girl's hair and tugging at the careless folds of her dress, but she heard nothing save the devil's tattoo that rang in her head, and felt nothing beyond the pain at throat and breast, which in time became so bitter that the tears were wrung from her dry eyes, and she began to weep in a pitiful woman fashion, as if her heart would burst. The first drops cleared a way for others, and soon she was sobbing freely, alone and without solace, lost in the night.
She had not succeeded in thoroughly isolating herself, however, for a man who was steering his course by the sense of feel and the wind's direction heard her and paused. His steps were muffled in the soft footing, so that she had no warning of his presence until he was near enough to distinguish her dimly where she leaned against the log wall of a half-completed cabin.
To his question, "What's the trouble here?" she made no answer, but moved away, whereupon he detained her. "There's something wrong. Who are you, anyhow?"
"It's only Necia, Mr. Stark," said the girl, at which he advanced and took her by the arm.
"What ails you, child? What in the world are you doing here? Come! It's only a step to my cabin; you must come in and rest awhile, and you'll soon be all right. Why, you'll break your neck in this darkness."