Page:Honore Willsie--Judith of the godless valley.djvu/258

 Douglas took a quick turn up and down the room, then halted before Peter, his sensitive mouth twitching, his blue eyes glowing. It seemed to him that he could not ask the question that must be asked; but finally he spoke, in a voice that was tense in the effort for self-control.

"Peter, I've thought of nothing else since last night. Something about the way you looked at her—! You are the best friend that I have, Peter, but I can't give Judith up, even to you; it would be like trying to tear the veins out of my body. She's my life, Judith is!"

The older man put the rider's belt carefully on the window-ledge, walked over to the table and slowly filled his pipe. When he had filled it, he laid it down beside the belt, put his hands in his pocket, and turned to Doug, who, with the cold sweat standing on his forehead, was watching Peter's every movement. The wind swept snow down through the sod roof. It hissed faintly on the stove. Peter's long face was knotted and hard.

"You have given me a shock, Douglas," he said at last. "You've given me a shock!"

Douglas' heart thudded heavily. It was true, then! Peter did care, though perhaps he had not realized it before.

Peter went on, with painful concentration on Douglas' blue eyes. "I hadn't known it, till this minute, Doug. I thought I was through. I'm fifty-six. God! Does life never finish with a man?" He laughed drearily. "Don't look at me like that, Douglas! You and I will never be rivals! This sort of thing can't undo me again. I swear it!"

He paced the room again, and once more paused before the young rider. "Not that I underestimate the strength of the thing. Who knows so well as I that