“If you think I should know.” The words came simply. He, looking down into the hint of features the firelight grudgingly gave him, saw there the frank camaraderie of a candid spirit: the soul that was Benicia O’Donoju, unsullied of artifice or the vain trickeries of the woman desired. “If you think I should know”—call of comrade to comrade. The desert girl scorning subtleties and inventions; knowing what her words would prompt yet wishing them to be said.
“It is that I love you, Benicia, and that I cannot leave you, loving you so, when I know you are in danger.” Grant gave her his heart’s pledge in simple directness. Though the girl was not unprepared for his avowal, the call in his words, elemental as the sweep of precious rain over the thirsting desert, set quivering chords of her being never before stirred. He saw the trembling of her lips; her curving lashes trembled and were jewelled with little drops. She turned her gaze into the fire for a long minute. Grant heard vaguely the voice of Bim Bagley expounding some theme of cattle ticks. His heart was on the rack.
“Grant—good friend—” Her voice broke, then valiantly found itself. “You heard from Urgo the story of our house—of the Red One and his crime against God—”
“The hound!” he muttered. Benicia groped on:
“My father—no one ever told me that story because—because—” Grant saw one hand steal up to touch with a gesture almost abhorrent the low wave of red over her brow—“I bear the sign, you see.”
He put out his hand to stay her, for the dregs of suffering were working a slow torture upon her; the face of the girl he loved had become like some sculptor’s study of the spirit of fatalism. He could not check her.
“My father when he returned to-day and I told him—my father said the story was true as Urgo told it. Once in every second generation—this sign of El Rojo, murderer and violator of the sanctuary—”
“But, Benicia, surely you don’t believe this fairy story!” Grant packed into his low words all the willing of a spirit fighting for precious possession. He felt that every word the girl spoke was pushing her farther from him.
“Ah, Grant, we desert people believe easily because the truth is not hidden. It is true; my good grey father knew that I knew it to be true and did not seek to deceive me when I asked him. The O’Donoju with this”—again the shrinking touch of fingers to the dull-burning stripe on her forehead—“cannot give love, for with love goes unhappiness—and death.”