Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/114

112 The red and purple sunset was gone, leaving greyness. A thick mist swept up the lake and into the yard, and beside them the moose was coughing. She herself seemed growing vague, indistinct. And then he caught her hands, bringing a sharp virile note into the haze.

"Andree," he said. "Will you marry me?"

She jumped, with a cry of anger and fear.

"Non, non," she gasped. "Nemoweya. I do not want to go maree. I do not want."

The breaking of her careful English warned him. He stood back on the instant.

"Why, don't be frightened, dear," he said. "You don't imagine I'd do a thing to frighten you? But I need you to think about this, Andree. I have thought of it ever since I first saw you in the trail."

"So?" she said, with a long indrawn breath.

She stared at him, with her brain working slowly behind the soft eyes. She had no desire for marriage. Always with Andree, "two boys were better than one, and three boys were better than two." But Robison had been troublesome of late, and it might be well to let Tempest step between to take the brunt. It did not run so in her mind. That held no more than the animal instinct of getting behind something that would shield it from danger. She stood very still in the mist that rimed her curls and her close-drawn hood and pushed long warning fingers between her and the man. The very silence that she used with Tempest waked his reverence. To him it showed a girl-heart finely tuned, and to be as finely touched. He did not guess that she had just enough wit to know it for her only weapon with him. The moose stamped impatiently in the snow. Then it flung restlessly round the yard, with neck laid back so that the budding horns made a line with the shoulders, and its big splay feet swinging noiselessly. It looked huge and threatening as it loomed in the mist, passed and came again. And Tempest had no knowledge of how the wild heart in that still girl called to it.

"I want you, dear," he said, gently. "And I think you likely want me. Everything needs its opposite—which is its complement. You won't understand that. But everything is made dual, Andree. Light needs darkness, sweet