"For the last time--for God's sake, Dan!"
Still that silence. She rose, shaking and weak. The changeless eyes
followed her. Only fear remained now. She backed towards the door,
slowly, then faster, and faster. At the threshold she whirled and
plunged into the night.
Up the road she raced. Once she stumbled and fell to her knees. She
cried out and glanced behind her, breathing again when she saw that
nothing followed. At the house she made no pause, though she heard the
voice of her father singing. She could not tell him. He should be the
last in all the world to know. She went to her room and huddled into
bed.
Presently a knock came at her door, and her father's voice asked if
she were ill. She pleaded that she had a bad headache and wished to be
alone. He asked if she had seen Dan. By a great effort she managed to
reply that Dan had ridden to a neighbouring ranch. Her father left
the door without further question. Afterwards she heard him in the
distance singing his favourite mournful ballads. It doubled her sense
of woe and brought home the clinging fear. She felt that if she could
weep she might live, but otherwise her heart would burst. And after
hours and hours of that torture which burns the name of "woman" in the
soul of a girl, the tears came.
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