It was the old trick of passionate speech; Natalie remembered the very words of old; but the man--she averted her head from the hideous spectacle. She was afraid to move or cry out, sure that Garth in his present mind would kill him if he heard.
Mabyn, conceiving nothing of the sublime irony of the figure he made, continued to plead. "Natalie, don't turn away from me! You took me for better or worse, remember! You found me at a disadvantage to-day; I don't look like this ordinarily. And you can make whatever you like of me! Remember the old days at home! I am the same man--Bert--your Bert! Look--he can't see us--I kneel to you as I did then!"
And down he went on his knees, stretching out his arms to her.
There was an odd, slight sound behind him. They both looked--and froze in the attitude of looking. Garth from his station, seeing the new look of horror overspread Natalie's face, spurred to join her.
There, clinging to the corner of the cabin for support, stood the figure of a woman. Her brown skin was blanched to a livid yellow; and her eyes were the eyes of one dead from a shock. She swayed forward from the waist as if her backbone could no longer support her. At her feet a tin pail emptied wild cherries on the ground.
Mabyn scrambled to his feet, shamed, chagrined, furious. "What do you want around here?" he cried brutally--even now seeking to outface her.
The piteous, stricken girl moistened her lips; and essayed more than once to speak, before any words came. "'Erbe't, who is this woman?" she said quite simply at last.
"What is that to you?" he blustered roughly, thinking to beat her down; perhaps to kill her outright with cruelty. "This is my wife!"
"Oh, no! no!" whispered Natalie, sick with the sight of so much misery.
It is doubtful if the girl heard her. She tottered forward; and seized and clung to Mabyn's arm. Her breast was heaved on hard, quick pants like a wounded animal's; and her eyes were as frantic, and as inhuman.
Mabyn, seeing that Natalie heard and understood, beside himself, and reckless with rage, flung out his arm, throwing her heavily to the ground. "You! damn you!" he cried. "You're just my----"
Natalie, with a low cry of horror, instinctively clapped her heels to her horse's ribs, and set off down the hill. Garth wheeled after her.