Page:Caroline Lockhart--The full of the Moon.djvu/200

 She knew his past, his wife—poor soul! Nan looked at him with curling lips.

"You talk too much for the good of your health, mujer," Spiser stooped for his hat, which he had placed under the bench.

The woman's eyes gleamed mockery at the warning, but she did not reply. Instead, she shrugged her gaunt shoulders under the blanket and stalked away.

Spiser was no longer swayed by passion when he left Nan's dobe, but itched with an intense desire to humiliate her. She had wounded his vanity deeply, and he was vindictive to the finger-tips.

Spiser was an active enemy; he could not wait passively for circumstances to shape themselves, but he must needs shape them himself to suit his ends. And the thought now uppermost in his mind was how he could quickest and most effectively revenge himself upon. Nan.

"I'll see that she's dealt more misery than she ever dreamed of," he snarled as he untied his horses. "I'll make her glad to get back to the place she came from, but first I'll give her a real taste of the wild West."