“There’s divorce laws in this country, ain’t there? How do you know she’s his wife now?”
“Mammy,” said Nance gratefully, “you’re the most wonderful woman I ever knew! You’ve got more reason than a houseful of lawyers. And I’m going to take heart right now. I’ll put this picture away in the package and wait till Brand is ready to tell me all about it—and I’ll stand steady in my love and my faith.”
“That’s my big girl!” said the mother, “now get to work at something. It’s th’ best cure-all on earth.”
Cattle Kate Cathrew sat on the broad veranda at Sky Line. She was clad like a sybarite, in shining satin. Rings sparkled on her fingers, lights sparkled in her hard eyes, a close-held excitement was visible in her whole appearance. She looked down across the vast green-clad slopes of Mystery and held her breath that she might the better listen for a sound in the stillness.
For she was waiting for the writer of those letters, the man from New York who came at regular intervals to bask in the peace of Sky Line—for Lawrence Arnold himself.
It had been months since she had seen him, and the passion in her was surging like molten lava.
It made her heart beat in slow, heavy strokes, too deeply charged for swiftness. It made her lips dry as fast as she could wet them, set a feeling of paralysis along the muscles of her arms.
She was in a trance of expectation, as exquisite as the fullest realisation. She had been so ever since the departure at early dawn of Provine with a led horse—none other than Bluefire whose proud back no one but this man ever crossed, except herself.
For three hours she had sat in the rustic rocker like a graven image, her hands spread on the broad arms, her immaculate black head seemingly at rest against the back.
And not a soul at Sky Line would have disturbed her.