Part 40

Mabyn turned furiously to Natalie. "Who is this man?" he cried, his cracked voice sliding into falsetto; "this sleek young sprig that rides alone with you through the country! I demand to know! I have a right to know!"

"I admit no right!" Natalie said firmly.

Mabyn, beside himself with jealous rage, no longer knew what he said. "You won't explain!" he cried. "You can't explain! Here's a nasty situation for a married woman!"

Garth's self-control, stretched on the rack through all this scene, suddenly snapped in twain. Temper with Garth took the form of laughter; mocking, dangerous laughter, that issued startlingly from his grave lips.

He laughed now. "You scoundrel!" he said in cool, incisive tones--though he was not a whit less blinded by passion than Mabyn himself--"after the kind of life you've been leading up here, have you still the assurance to lay a claim upon her! And to cast a reflection on her good name! Have you no mirror to see what you are? Go in the lake, then, and see the vile record written on your face!"

Mabyn was staggered. Garth's terrible scorn penetrated the last wrappings of the warmly nurtured ego within. He shot a startled glance at Garth; and from Garth to the hut and behind, as if wondering how much he knew.

Garth was not through with him. He slipped his stirrups, preparatory to leaping off his horse. Natalie trembled at the quiet man's new aspect.

"Garth!" she entreated urgently.

The sound of her voice recalled him to himself. Settling back in his saddle, he abruptly turned his horse, and went off a little way, struggling to regain his self-command.

Mabyn, misunderstanding, was vastly lifted up by this word of Natalie's, and the writhing ego within hastened to repair the horrid breach Garth had made. He approached her, hidden by her horse from Garth.

"Oh, Natalie!" he gabbled whiningly; "don't listen to him. He's a low cur! But he can't make trouble between you and me! Send him away! Natalie, I seem to have acted badly; but I can explain everything! Circumstances were all against me! In my heart I've never swerved from you! I dream of you every night in my lonesomeness! Wherever I look I see your face before my eyes!"

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.

"'Erbe't, who am I?" she breathed.

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.

"Oh, stay--stay and help her!" she gasped.

"You come first!" said Garth grimly.

Mabyn, as Natalie turned, sprang after her; and running desperately, managed to cling to her stirrup. Casting off the last vestiges of manliness he wept and prayed her to wait for him. Her horse, Caspar, kicked out wildly, and struck him off. He lay on the ground sobbing and cursing; striving to drag himself along with clawing hands.

Just before they gained the watercourse, Garth looked over his shoulder; and his heart leapt into his throat. The brown woman was reaching for Mabyn's rifle. He shouted a warning; and desperately strove to throw his horse behind Natalie. But it was too late. Hard upon his voice, the shot rang. A strange, low cry broke from Natalie; and she reeled in her saddle. Garth, spurring ahead, grasped Caspar's bridle, and caught her from falling. A pang, far more dreadful than the hurt of a bullet, smote his own breast.