He knew to-night that his whole spiritual being was made simply of two elements: of love, which is a white flame in a man like Drennen; of jealousy, which is a black shadow. He had been on his way to her, his mind made up that he would not sleep without telling her of his love.

The sight of Garcia had halted him. Garcia's singing to her had awakened a fierce anger within him; his flesh had twitched and something had seemed to sear hot through it as Garcia's lips touched her hand.

Now he tried to look at these matters calmly. He knew that in the fury which had sent him at Lemarc and Sefton before Marshall Sothern had gathered up his limp body the driving force had been jealousy. He knew that even then, in his delirium, he wanted her all to himself.

Less than a month had pa.s.sed since first he had seen her and he did not now know what manner of woman she was. But he did know that that does not matter. His fate had driven him into the North Woods ten years ago that he might be here when she came; her destiny had brought her to MacLeod's Settlement from New Orleans to him. Because the greatest of all laws lies hidden under a clutter of little things that law is none the less great or real. He had grown to see as a miraculous manifestation of this law even the fact that he and Ygerne Bellaire had been born in the same generation. . . . Stern-minded men of science, whose creed is to doubt all things until they are proven in such wise as an objective brain can accept them as incontrovertible, see no miracle in the fact that a certain female moth, left alone upon a mountain top, will draw to herself a male mate from mountainous miles away. Even in the insect world there is a silent call which is a voice of destiny. Omnipotence is not above concerning itself with the embrace of two tiny, fragile-winged creatures in the darkness of the solitudes. Surely there is an urge and yearning of human souls which knows not distance and obstacles, which brings together man and his mate.

These were strange, new thoughts to David Drennen and yet they came naturally as an old knowledge set aside, half forgotten, ultimately vividly recalled. He loved Ygerne; she must love him. Therein alone could lie the explanation of his presence here and of hers. When he had quitted his dugout this evening there had been more than determination in his heart; there had been confidence.

And now? He wandered aimlessly. Determination and confidence had both left him. Garcia had sung to her and the singing had pleased. Garcia had made love to her in his song and she had thrown open her window.

Garcia had kissed her hand and she had given him a flower.

Deep in his troubled thoughts Drennen had stopped a third time. He was in thick shadow and saw two figures that had followed him. He made out that here were Lemarc and Sefton as they came on, cautiously and silently. This thing was to be expected; these men were plucking with greedy fingers as fortune's robe and for such as they he was one to be watched. He saw them pa.s.s on along the trail; his still form in the shadows was blotted out from them by the tall boles of the trees. His eyes followed them a moment, then lost them. Already he had forgotten them. His thoughts went back to Ygerne Bellaire, to the scene at the window.

The moon pushed a great golden disc up over the ridge. It was at the full and made glorious patterns of light through the forest. Little voices of the night which he had not heard until now began to thrill and quiver under the soft light. It was as though the North Woods were filled with a secret, pigmy people who were moon worshippers; as though now they greeted their G.o.ddess with an elfin chant of praise.

A strange sadness fastened itself upon the man. The beauty of the night touched him deeply. It brought with its stillness an unaccustomed emotion of melancholy. He was suddenly lonely. The night was rarely perfect and yet it wanted something. It was complete yet it was empty. The moonrise, the golden glory of stars set against the soft bosom of the sky, brought a sense of lack of something. It touched the soul and yet did not satisfy. It awoke a sort of soul thirst and hunger in him. Upon him was the old yearning, the yearning of the man for his mate, that longing experienced never so poignantly as in a spot like this where a man is alone with the woodland.

Dimly conscious of many emotions mingled and confused, David Drennen was keenly awake to the sweeping alteration which a few days had effected in him. Not that he fully understood that which he recognised. He was inclined to look upon himself as a different man; like many a man before him whom love or hate, a great joy or a great disaster, had appeared to make over, he was but experiencing the sensation resultant from the emanc.i.p.ation of a certain portion of his being which had existed always until now in a state of bondage, silent and hidden.

He stood a long time, very still. So motionless that when the moon had driven the shadows back and found him out he looked a brother to the inanimate objects about him. But when at last he moved, while slowly, it was without hesitation. He was going to Ygerne.

Marquette's store was closed, the doors locked. There was a light from Ygerne's window, another light from a second window, Madden's room.

Drennen pa.s.sed about the house and came to the door of the living room.

There was no light shining under the door, but he knocked. In a little Mere Jeanne, a wrap thrown about her, came in answer.

"May I see Miss Bellaire?" he said simply. "Will you tell her that it is important?"

Mere Jeanne looked at him shrewdly, with little hesitation made up her mind that he came as a lover, left him at the door and went to the girl. A moment later Ygerne entered the little living room. Drennen stepped across the threshold.

"I wanted to talk with you," he said gravely.

The girl shot a quick, curious look at him and went to a chair.

"Will you come outside with me?" he asked quietly. "It is quite a private matter. We can walk up and down in the moonlight, just outside."

A moment she seemed to hesitate. Then she shook her head.

"We are alone here," she replied. "What is it?"

"It is many things, Ygerne." He closed the outside door and stood with his back to it, his eyes very steady upon hers. A sudden pulsing of blood coursed through him but he held himself steady, forcing his voice to remain grave and quiet. "To begin with I want to apologise to you for having been a brute to you since I first saw you. If you can't find it in your heart to make any excuses for me at least you can know that I am both sorry and ashamed of myself."

Again she shot that quick, questioning glance at him. She felt as he had felt: "This is some new David Drennen."

"You know me pretty well," he went on. "Better than I know you, I think. I am a man whose name has been dragged through a lot of muck and mire. I am the son of a thief. My father was without honour. G.o.d knows how good or how bad I am. My life for ten years has been an ugly thing, a good deal more evil than good. If you are the sort of woman I like to think you are, then I suppose that my presence here is little less than an insult to you, though G.o.d knows I don't mean it to be."

He paused. She watched him as before, save that now a quick light of understanding had come into her eyes, a faint flush to her cheeks.

Like Mere Jeanne, she had glimpsed the lover in the man--he couldn't know that already he had told her all that he had come to say; but she knew.

"I told you the truth the other day, Ygerne. That day when I went mad.

I love you. I'd like to be another sort of man, a better sort, coming to tell you this. But if I were a better man I couldn't love you any better."

Despite the surety that the words were coming they must have brought a little shock to her. She rose swiftly, her hands coming up from her sides until they clasped each other in front of her.

"I didn't believe in love until you came, Ygerne. I have never seen such a thing in the life I have lived. You see, to begin with, I thought my father loved me and that I loved him. I was mistaken. I thought I had a friend once and again I was mistaken. But now I know there is such a thing. I want you and you are all that I want in the world. I want you, Ygerne, in a way I did not know a man could want anything. Through you I have come to look at all creation in a new way; it seems to me that there is a G.o.d. Am I talking like a madman again? Or just like a fool? . . . I feel sometimes that I love you because I was created for the sole purpose of loving you; that you must love me for the same reason. There are other times when that doesn't seem possible, when I can't conceive of your coming to me as I come to you. But in the end I had to know, Ygerne. Am I a fool? Or do you love me?"

He had made no movement toward her. He stood very still at the door.

He had striven with his emotion so that outwardly he mastered it. His voice had remained calm and very steady.

"You said a moment ago," Ygerne answered him, and her voice too was cool almost to the point of indifference, "that you had been a brute to me. Knowing you as I do, is it likely that I should have come to love you?"

"No," he said.

"Then why do you come to me this way, now?"

"Because I had to come. Because it is not always the likely thing which happens. Because I have thought that we were made for each other, you and I. Because I must know."

He waited for her answer, an answer which he feared she had already given him. He hungered for her so that he could only wonder how he could hold himself back from taking her up into his arms. But he mastered himself so that the girl could not guess how hard he strove for the mastery.

"Is love a little thing or a big thing?" she said suddenly.

"A big thing. I think it is the biggest thing in the world."

"And still, believing that, you think that I am a girl to let you treat me as you have treated me since we first saw each other, and then to come to you when you decide to crook your finger to me, giving you my love? Is that it? Is that why you are here to-night?"

"Is that my answer, Ygerne?" he said, his tone more stern than it had yet been.

"That is no answer at all, Mr. Drennen. It is a question."

His face grew a little white as he stared at her.

"I think, Ygerne, that I shall tell you good night now. And in the morning, before you are up, I'll be gone. All my life I hope I shall never see you again. And you can know that every day of it I'll be mad to see you."

He bent his head to her, turning away, a dull agony in his heart. His hand was upon the k.n.o.b of the door. Then she came toward him swiftly.

Half way across the room she stopped. Suddenly her face was scarlet, her eyes were shining at him like stars. Her beauty was a new beauty, infinitely desirable.

"Were I the man," she said with a voice which shook with the pa.s.sion in it, "I'd not want my woman to come to me! I'd want to go to her, to take her with my own strength, to hold her with it, to know that she was too proud to yield even when she was burning to be taken!"

"Ygerne!" he said sharply.

There was a sort of defiance in the sudden, tensity of her erect body, an imperiousness in the carriage of her head. Her eyes met his with something of the same defiance in them. But in them, too, was a great light.

Drennen came to her swiftly. His arms tightened about her, drawing her so close that each heart felt the other striking against it. She let him hold her so, but even yielding she seemed to resist. His lips, seeking her red mouth, found it this time. She gave back the pa.s.sion of his kiss pa.s.sionately. He felt a thrill through him like an electric current.

"By G.o.d, Ygerne," he cried joyously, "we'll make life over now!"

Suddenly she had wrenched herself free of him.

"I didn't love you yesterday," she said pantingly, holding him back at arm's length, her wide, half-frightened eyes upon his. "Will I love you to-morrow? . . . You must go now; go!"