She looked at him coolly, her gaze defying him to pry into matters which did not concern him. He understood the look and said calmly:

"I want him to get well. There are reasons why he has got to get well."

"I know," she laughed at him. "Good, golden reasons!"

"If he loves you, as I have a mind he does," Sothern went on quietly, "I think that you could do more to help him than any one else. If he hates you you might do more harm than good. That is why I asked."

"He is delirious?"

"A great deal of the time; not always."

Her brows puckered thoughtfully.

"I think," she said at last, "that he loves me and hates me . . . both!

But I'll come in and see if I can be of any help. I, too, have good reasons for wanting him to live."

So the door to Drennen's dugout was opened to Ygerne Bellaire. But to no one else in the Settlement; Marshall Sothern saw to that. Madden came, Hasbrook came; but they did not get their feet across the rude threshold. They grumbled, Madden in particular. They accused Sothern of taking an unfair advantage; of keeping the delirious man under his own eye and ear that he might seek to steal his secret from him; of plotting with Ygerne to aid in the same end. But, say what they might outside, they did not come in.

"We'll see which is the greater, his love for me or his hate," the girl had said. She sat down by the bed, laying her hand softly upon the bared arm which Drennen had flung out. He turned, looking at her with frowning eyes. In silence she waited. Sothern, standing by the door, his eyes watchful as they pa.s.sed back and forth from her face to Drennen's, was silent. For a score of seconds Drennen's gaze was unfaltering. Then, with a little sigh, he drew her hand close to him, rested his cheek against it and went to sleep. Sothern, looking now at the girl's face, saw it flush as though with pleasure.

Now she was at the dugout almost as much as Marshall Sothern. The long hours of the day she spent at the bedside, going to her own room only when it grew dark. And even in the night, once Sothern sent for her.

Drennen had called for her; had grown violent when she was denied to him and would not be quieted when Sothern sought to reason with him.

So Ygerne, dressing hurriedly, her sweater about her, came.

"Why do you come to me that way?"

Drennen had lifted himself upon his elbow, calling out angrily.

"What do you mean?" she asked wondering.

"In that miserable sweater!" he cried. "That's good enough for other women, not for you."

And he made her go back and put on the dress she had worn that night when she had dined with him. She argued with him but he insisted. He would have none of her in her sweater.

"Oh, well," she said, and went out. Sothern thought that she had gone for good. His eyes narrowed and stared speculatively when in a little she came in again. Drennen smiled, openly approved of the Ygerne whom he had sought to kiss, took her hands, kissed them and holding them grew quiet.

He grew stronger almost steadily after that. He had much fever and delirium, but his wounds healed and he ceased to lose ground as he had been doing. In his ravings he made much pa.s.sionate love to Ygerne, his tones running from the gentleness of supplication to the flame of hot avowal. In lucid moments of sanity he accepted her presence as a quite natural condition, too utterly exhausted by the periods of delirium through which he had pa.s.sed to ask questions. A few times, indeed, he railed at her as he had done when he had come upon her on the river bank. But for the most part his att.i.tude answered over and over the question Ygerne had implied when first she had come to his side; his love was greater than his hate.

Then there came a day when David Drennen was the old David Drennen once more. He awoke with clear eyes and clear brain. He saw both Marshall Sothern and Ygerne Bellaire. He closed his eyes swiftly. He must think. As he thought, remembering a little, guessing more, a hard smile, the old bitter smile came to his lips. He opened his eyes again and lifted himself upon his elbow. The eyes which met Sothern's were as hard as steel; they ignored the girl entirely.

"I've been sick?" he said coolly. "Well, I'm not sick any longer. In a day or so I'll be around again. Then I'll pay you for your trouble."

And seeing from the look in Sothern's eyes that the rude insult had registered he laughed and turned his face away from them. Sothern and the girl stepped outside together, without a word.

"He is just plain brute!" the girl cried with pa.s.sionate contempt.

The old man shook his head gravely. He laid his hand very gently upon her shoulder, his unexpected familiarity drawing a quick questioning look from her.

"Little girl," he said thoughtfully, "he's just plain man, that's all; man hammered and beaten awry by the vicious little G.o.ds of mischance.

If there's anything good left in him it's his love for you. There is a time coming when I am going to wield the destinies of one of the greatest corporations in the West. My responsibility then, compared to yours now, will be as a grain of sand to Old Ironhead up yonder."

CHAPTER XIII

YGERNE'S ANSWER

"The perfume of roses, of little red roses; (Thou art a rose, oh, so sweet, _corazon_!) The laugh of the water who falls in the fountain; (Thou art the fountain of love, _corazon_!) The brightness of stars, of little stars golden; (_Estrella de mi vida_! My little life star!) The shine of the moon through the magnolia tree; I am so sad till thou come, _mi amor_!

_Dios_! It is sweet to be young and to love!

More sweet than wine . . . to be young and to love!"

There was tenderness in the voice. Each note was like the pure sound of a little gold bell struck softly with a tiny golden hammer.

There had been determination in David Drennen's eye, in his carriage, in his stride which swiftly bore him onward through the early night from his own dugout toward the old Frenchman's store. Not fifty steps from Marquette's he stopped abruptly, listening to the soft singing.

It was not so dark that he could not make out the slender, exquisite form of the young Mexican. Ramon Garcia, wrapped about in his long coat like a cavalier in a graceful cloak, his face lifted a little, his head bared, was close to a certain window of Pere Marquette's. Drennen knew whose window.

With no conscious desire to eavesdrop, merely stopped by an unforeseen contingency, Drennen stood still. Garcia, his eyes upon a line of light under the window shade, did not see him. It was hardly more than an instant that Drennen stood there, watching; but the little drama was enacted before he moved on.

Slowly, while the last notes were fainting away plaintively, the window was raised. Drennen saw Ygerne Bellaire, half in light, half in shadow. She leaned out. She was laughing softly. Garcia, his bow carrying to the ground his hat which in the dim light appeared to Drennen's fancy to wear the black plume which would not have been misplaced there, came closer to the window. Upon the girl's face was a gaiety Drennen had not seen there until now; her lips curved to it, her eyes danced with it. She had a little meadow flower in her hand; Drennen wondered if she had been eagerly selecting it from a cl.u.s.ter of its fellows while Garcia sang.

"You are not real, senor," she said lightly. "I wonder if you know that?"

"It is you . . ." he began, his voice charged with the music about which the man's soul was builded.

"No, no," she laughed. "You are not real. You have just wandered out of an old romance like a ghost; when the sun comes up you'll have to creep back between dusty covers of a book a hundred years old."

He put out a hand towards hers on the window sill.

"Give me the little flower," he pleaded, southern lover-wise. "I shall never let it go away from its place on my heart, though I fear," and his hand crept a little closer, "that my heart will burst with the joy of it!"

The little meadow flower went from her fingers to his.

"A flower for your song, senor. A poor little flower which should have golden petals."

"Living," he murmured, no heights or depths of sentiment seeming beyond him, "it shall always be with me, a joy so sweet that it almost kills.

Dead, I shall be happy just to wear it."

She laughed as he caught her hand and kissed it. The window closed softly, the shade was drawn down, and Ramon Garcia, hat still in one hand, the flower in the other, pa.s.sed down the street, still singing in a gentle undertone. Drennen turned abruptly at right angles to the way he had come and pa.s.sed out of the Settlement into the darkness under the trees.

Swiftness and determination had gone out of his stride. Unconsciously he allowed his feet to carry him along a well known trail which led along the flank of the wooded slope. Once or twice he stopped. Then again he moved on, always further, from the Settlement.

He was well again and strong. Rest and nature had done all they could for him in a handful of long, quiet days. He was still twenty pounds lighter than he should be normally, but he had both feet firmly set in a smooth highway of convalescence. The mental and spiritual roadways were not so smooth or straight.

He had seen much of Ygerne of late. He had come to know that, wise man or fool, he loved her. They had met frequently, at Joe's, upon the short street, in their walks up and down the river. They had not spoken of all that had gone before and there had been as much silence as talk between them. He continued to tell himself coolly that he knew nothing of her, that she might be good or bad, loyal or treacherous.

But he knew that he did not hate her and that he did love her. He knew that he was not angry because she had come into his life but that he was glad.