“Why?” he asked, and his voice sounded strange to him.
“Because,” said Tharon simply, “because he kissed me––once––an’ shot my daddy––in th’ back, th’ hound!”
“God!” said Kenset
For a moment there was silence while a bird called sharply from a pine top and the voice of the little stream became subtly audible.
It seemed to the man that all his values of life had suddenly become shifted, changed. The commonplace had become the unreal, the unlikely the familiar.
Guns and threats and racing horses with a woman for prize became on the moment natural events in this hidden setting.
And what a woman she was! He looked up in her face again and saw there sweetness and strength, and grim purpose beyond his conception. He knew that her words were downright, and that they meant no more to her than duty to be done, 140 a conscience cleared of debt. He glanced at the hand lying so quietly on the pommel and thought of it as stained with blood. At the fancy he frowned and mentally shook himself.
Then, with an impulse wholly beyond his command, he reached up and laid his own hand over that one on the pommel.
“Miss Last,” he said gravely, “I have no words to express what I feel this moment about Lost Valley and its people. Will you get down and let me show you my house, here in my glade?”
Tharon sat quietly for a moment and looked down at him. She did not remove her hand from under his, neither did she seem to be conscious of it.