Her tongue was ready for its release. Pent words lay deep in her soul for an outpouring at the lightest sign. But these things were dependent, dependent upon the reading she found in the man's eyes.
The horse stood drooping at the termination of its effort. The man sprang from the saddle. A barn-hand took the beast away to its stable. Elvine's tongue remained almost cleaving to the roof of her mouth.
The man's fair brows were depressed. His eyes were sternly cold. And not once did they turn in her direction. He spoke in his usual tone to the barn-hand. He issued his orders without a sign of emotion.
Elvine could stand no more. She stirred. Then slowly she passed within the house.
Presently Jeff's step sounded on the veranda. It was quick. There was nothing lagging in it. The woman gripped the back of a chair in the living-room in which she had taken refuge. She was seeking support.
The man entered the room. Nor did he remove his hat. He stood just within the window opening, and his eyes, cold as the gleam of the mountain glaciers, regarded her steadily.
"I see you understand," he said. "You realized what must happen when I visited Dug McFarlane in the matter of Peters, who bought your dead husband's farm. You knew it when you read that letter I gave you. And so you protested. So you assured me of—your regard."
He came a step nearer. The movement was almost involuntary.
"I have prayed to God that some day he might bring me face to face with the person who sold my brother's life. He has granted me my prayer. But it never entered my wildest dreams that it could be the woman I married. I never questioned your past. To me it was sufficient that you had taught me the meaning of love. To me you must be all you seemed. No more, no less. God help me, I had no imagination to tell me that so fair a body could contain so foul a heart. Were you not my wife, were you a man, I should know how to deal with that which lies between us. As it is you must thank the difference in our sex for that which nothing else could have done for you. As yet I have not had the time to arrange the details of our future. To-morrow, perhaps, things will have cleared in my mind. I shall sleep to-night over at Bud's——"
"Oh, Jeff, Jeff, have mercy. I——"