He was within fifty yards of that friendly, open door, when he became aware that a woman’s figure was standing before it. Her back was turned, and she looked to be either peering within the hut, or talking to some one inside it. Nor, strangely enough, did he recognize the trim outline of her figure until she abruptly turned away and moved off in the direction of her own house. It was Eve 227 Henderson. And, without hesitation, he swung his horse in her direction.
She saw him at once and, smiling a welcome, waited for him to come up. He saw the smile and the unhesitating way she stepped forward to greet him. There could have been no doubt of her cordiality, even eagerness, yet with the shadow of his disgrace hanging over him, he tried to look beyond it for that something which he was ready to resent even in her.
He saw the shadow on her face, which even her smile had no power to lift out of its troubled lines. He saw dark shadows round her eyes, the tremulous, drooping mouth, once so buoyant and happy, and he selfishly took these signs to himself, and moodily felt that she was trying vainly to conceal her real thoughts of him behind a display of loyalty.
There was no verbal greeting between them, and he felt this to be a further ominous sign. Somehow, he could not force himself to an ordinary greeting under the circumstances. She had doubtless heard the story, so––– But he was quite wrong. Eve was simply wondering at his coming. Wondering what it portended. She had truly enough heard the story of the recovery of the cattle, as who in Barnriff had not? But her wonder and nervousness were not for him, but for herself. It was for herself, and had to do with that fear she had told Annie Gay of, and which now had become a sort of waking nightmare to her.
Jim sprang from the saddle. Linking his arm through the reins, he stood facing the woman he loved. “Well?” he said, in a curious, half-defiant manner, while his glance swept over every detail of her pretty, 228 troubled face. Finally it settled upon the slight scar over her temple, and a less selfish feeling took possession of him. The change in her expression suddenly told him its own story. Her eyes were the eyes of suffering, not of any condemnation of himself.
“I––I’ve just been over to see if Peter was in,” she said hesitatingly.
“Peter? Oh, yes––and, wasn’t he?”
Jim was suddenly seized with a feeling of awkwardness such as he had never before felt when talking to Eve.
The girl shook her head and began to move in the direction of her house. He fell in beside her, and, for a moment, neither spoke. Finally she went on.
“No,” she said regretfully. “And I sure wanted to see him so badly. You see,” she added hastily, “Elia is away. He’s been away for days, and, well, I want to know where he is. I get so anxious when he’s away. You see, he’s so–––”