Gods Country--And the Woman | Page 5

a beauty, and a
STRENGTH that made him look at her speechless, waiting for the
sound of her voice. In her look there was neither boldness nor suspicion.
Her eyes were clear, deep pools of velvety blue that defied him to lie to
her, He felt that under those eyes he could have knelt down upon the
sand and emptied his soul of its secrets for their inspection.
"It is not very strange that I should be here" she said at last. "I have
always lived here. It is my home."
"Yes, I believe that," breathed Philip. "It is the last thing in the world
that one would believe--but I do; I believe it. Something--I don't know
what--told me that you belonged to this world as you stood there beside
the rock. But I don't understand. A thousand miles from a city--and you!
It's unreal. It's almost like the dreams I've been dreaming during the
past eighteen months, and the visions I've seen during that long,
maddening night up on the coast, when for five months we didn't see a
glow of the sun. But--you understand--it's hard to comprehend."
From her he glanced swiftly over the rocks of the coulee, as if
expecting to see some sign of the home she had spoken of, or at least of

some other human presence. She understood his questioning look. "I
am alone," she said.
The quality of her voice startled him more then her words. There was a
deeper, darker glow in her eyes as she watched their effect upon him.
She swept out a gleaming white arm, still moist with the water of the
pool, taking in the wide, autumn-tinted spaces about them.
"I am alone," she repeated, still keeping her eyes on his face. "Entirely
alone. That is why you startled me--why I was afraid. This is my
hiding-place, and I thought--"
He saw that she had spoken words that she would have recalled. She
hesitated. Her lips trembled. In that moment of suspense a little gray
ermine dislodged a stone from the rock ridge above them, and at the
sound of it as it struck behind her the girl gave a start, and a quick flash
of the old fear leaped for an instant into her face. And now Philip
beheld something in her which he had been too bewildered and
wonder-struck to observe before. Her first terror had been so acute that
he had failed to see what remained after her fright had passed. But it
was clear to him now, and the look that came into his own face told her
that he had made the discovery.
The beauty of her face, her eyes, her hair--the wonder of her presence
six hundred miles from civilization--had held him spellbound. He had
seen only the deep lustre and the wonderful blue of her eyes. Now he
saw that those eyes, exquisite in their loveliness, were haunted by
something which she was struggling to fight back--a questing, hunted
look that burned there steadily, and of which he was not the cause. A
deep-seated grief, a terror far back, shone through the forced calmness
with which she was speaking to him. He knew that she was fighting
with herself, that the nervously twitching fingers at her breast told more
than her lips had confessed. He stepped nearer to her and held out a
hand, and when he spoke his voice was vibrant with the thing that made
men respect him and women have faith in him.
"Tell me--what you started to say," he entreated quietly. "This is your
hiding-place, and you thought--what? I think that I can guess. You

thought that I was some one else, whom you have reason to fear."
She did not answer. It was as if she had not yet completely measured
him. Her eyes told him that. They were not looking AT him, but INTO
him. And they were softly beautiful as wood violets. He found himself
looking steadily into them--close, so close that he could have reached
out and touched her. Slowly there came over them a filmy softness.
And then, marvellously, he saw the tears gathering, as dew might
gather over the sweet petals of a flower. And still for a moment she did
not speak. There came a little quiver at her throat, and she caught
herself with a quick, soft breath.
"Yes, I thought you were some one else--whom I fear," she said then.
"But why should I tell you? You are from down there, from what you
please to call civilization. I should distrust you because of that. So
why--why should I tell you?"
In an instant Philip was at her side. In his rough, storm-beaten hand he
caught the white fingers that trembled at her breast. And there was
something about him