“The pins hurt my head, and it’s so heavy, I let it down,” she deprecated, feeling Bessie’s eyes upon her.
Bessie did not answer, but she brought a Navaho blanket for her guest to wrap about herself on the walk back to the lodge.
“You insist upon going?” asked Ewan in a displeased tone, as he saw his sister taking her heavy coat from its hook. “It isn’t at all necessary, Bess,” he added with emphasis.
“I told you I wouldn’t stay here alone,” retorted the girl, decidedly.
Mrs. Armitage flung her hostess a keen look from under those modestly lowered lashes, then, thrusting one hand through Ewan’s crooked elbow, set off ahead with her escort, leaving Bessie to stumble along as best she might, behind them.
Arrived at the lodge, Gretel unlocked the door and turned to the approaching girl.
"It appears that my husband oddly enough left the key with you, a complete stranger. Miss Gillespie. But he’s always doing queer things. Do you wish to lock me in now? So that you can go away with the key to my freedom in your apron pocket?” She laughed low, bitterly.
“I don’t want the key, Mrs. Armitage. I would not have taken it at all had not your husband represented that you chose to be locked in, and wished someone to have it in case of an emergency. You are looking at the whole situation in the wrong light. When he returns, I shall explain how it happened that you came across the stream, into our cabin,” she finished, “for that was what he told me must not happen.”
“Shall you tell my husband,” she cried tauntingly, "how your dear brother carried me in his arms, against his heart? Over the stream? Into his home ? How he slept all night with his head on my lap? I think not, Miss Gillespie.”
The doctor’s wife laughed with mocking intonation.
“Shall I make Ewan stay here with me? Or do you want him to go home with you? Which will look better in my husband’s eyes?” she said. “Ewan will stay with me, if I ask him. Ewan?” caressingly.
Like a man half dazed, uncertain of himself, the young artist took a hesitating step in Gretel’s direction. Bessie uttered a little choking cry. She wound her fingers into his cuff and held tightly.
“That wouldn’t help yon, my dear girl,” Mrs. Armitage observed indulgently, her amused glance taking in the girl’s action. “He would always come to me when I called him. Always. Nobody can stop him—now—for he is mine,” she asserted, malicious laughter in her voice.
“Dr. Armitage could keep him from following you,” asserted Bessie, courageously. “He can hold you in check, Mrs. Armitage.”
Her rosy cheeks suddenly mist-pale, Mrs. Armitage darted from the doorway. She thrust her face close to the other girl’s, her pale eyes glinting redly.
“What has he told you?” she whispered with fierce eagerness. “Oh, I shall punish him for betraying me to you, you brown thing! He makes everybody fear me, with his lies!”
She caught herself, walked back to the door, took out the key and inserted it on the inside.
“Well, it appears that you and Dale have found something to dislike in common,” she slurred bitterly. “And that something is Dale’s wife. Well, my dear, tell him what you please. I don’t know, and I don’t care, how you will account for the key’s being in my hands. But don’t talk too much, little fool, or I shall
(Continued on page 144)
