The signal was given at the midday meal. The rancher, who had never mentioned Tresler’s name since that memorable night, rose from the table to retire to his room. At the door he paused and turned.
“That man, Tresler,” he said, in his smooth, even tones. “He’s well enough to go to the bunkhouse. See to it.”
And he left the girl crushed and helpless. It had come at last. She knew that she could keep her lover no longer at her side. Even Doc. Osler could not help her, and, besides, if she refused to obey, her father would not have the slightest compunction in attending to the matter in his own way.
So it was with a heavy heart she took herself up-stairs for the afternoon. This tête-à-tête had become their custom every day; she with her sewing, and the sick man luxuriating in a pipe. Tresler was still bandaged, but it was only lightly, for the wound was almost healed.
The girl took up her position as usual, and Tresler moved his chair over beside the little table she laid her work on, and sat facing her. He loved to gaze upon the sad little face. He loved to say things to her that would rouse it from its serious caste, and show him the shadows dispelled, and the pretty smile wreathing itself in their stead. And he had found it so easy too. The simplicity, the honesty, the single-mindedness of this prairie flower made her more than susceptible to girlish happiness, even amidst her troublous surroundings. But he knew that these moments were all too passing, that to make them enduring he must somehow contrive to get her away from that world of brutality to a place where she could bask, surrounded by love and the sunshine of a happy home. And during the days of his convalescence he planned and plotted for the consummation of his hopes.
But he found her more difficult to-day. The eyes were a shade more sad, and the smile would not come to banish the shadows. The sweet mouth, too, always drooping slightly at the corners, seemed to droop more than usual to-day. He tried, in vain, every topic that he thought would interest her, but at last himself began to experience the depression that seemed to weigh so desperately on her. And strangely enough this dispiriting influence conjured up in his mind a morbid memory, that until then had utterly escaped him. It was the dream he had the night before his awakening. And almost unconsciously he spoke of it.
“You remember the day I woke to find myself here, Danny?” he said. “It just occurs to me now that I wasn’t unconscious all the time before. I distinctly remember dreaming. Perhaps I was only asleep.”
The girl shook her head.
“You were more than asleep,” she said portentously.
“Anyhow, I distinctly remember a dream I had. I should say it was ‘nightmare.’ It was about your father. He’d got me by the throat, and—what’s the matter?”