“You may be no Grimshaw, Bess; you look to have finer blood in you than theirs.”
Bess lifted her head as though some ennoblement would be very sweet to one who felt the shame of her present lot. Any such discovery would lift her nearer to Jeffray and lessen that gulf between them that was ever stretched before her pride.
“I will try,” she said at last—“try what I can learn from Dan. He is a great fool, though he is so strong.”
“And you do not love him any better?”
“Love Dan?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, is there any heart in me that I should love the brute! I have felt near killing him before now.”
Scarcely had this burst of passion spent itself in words when Bess’s face grew bleak and set. She held up a hand and sat listening, rigid yet alert. Jeffray could hear nothing, for his ears were less quick to the sounds of the forest than the girl’s. Only by the look of strained intentness on her face could he tell that she caught sounds that did not reach his hearing.
“What is it?” he asked her, in a whisper.
“I hear a dog panting in the wood.”