Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/251



Beth to marry him, and so end forever this disquieting conflict within him—a conflict that had not been in his calculations when he had planned a happy summer.

It was physical attraction, he argued, together with the interest aroused by her unusual personality, which drew him to Kate—a passing fancy, a curious, inexplicable infatuation; but, he assured himself stoutly, not at all the foundation upon which to build for permanancy. Yet as he rode towards the mountains with his eyes fixed upon the low pass to which Teeters had directed him, he experienced the first real thrill of carefree happiness that had come to him since his arrival.

The trail was a long and a hard one. His horse lost a shoe and limped badly, so, as the day waned, he walked frequently to spare the animal. He was tired, but too eager to be conscious of it. He wondered what she would be doing when he found her, and whether he could surprise something like the old-time welcome from her. How her eyes used to sparkle when he rode up to her! He smiled to himself as he recalled her smile—frank, beaming, her face radiant with undisguised pleasure.

Kate was sitting on a rock on the backbone of a ridge when he drew in sight of her—a dark picturesque silhouette against the sky. The sheep fed below, and her horse, with a bed-roll across its back, nibbled not far away.

Hugh stopped and looked at the lonely figure sitting motionless in the opaline-tinted light of the sunset, her chin sunk in her palm, her shoulders drooping. The tears rose to the man's eyes unexpectedly. It was not right, such solitude for a woman, he told himself vehemently.

It was singular, too, he reflected, how the mere sight of her revitalized him. Life took on a sudden interest, a zest that it never had elsewhere.He supposed it was