reet who, though they might not hear the words,
could not misread the look. She flushed a little, sent another
flashing sidelong glance at him, making him no other answer than that.
He asked none other. He accompanied her to Joe's and where they had
dined the other evening in the privacy of the half shut-off room, they
breakfasted now. Drennen ordered another cup of coffee for himself and
forgot to drink it as he had forgotten the first.

Ygerne, on the other hand, ate her meal with composure. When he sought
in a lover's undertone to refer to last night she remarked evasively
upon the weather. When he said, over and over, "And you do love me,
Ygerne?" she turned her eyes anywhere but upon his and refused to hear.
And he laughed a new laugh, so different from that of yesterday, and
worshipped man fashion and man fashion yearned to have her in his arms.
When at last she had paid her own score, so insistent upon it that
Drennen gave over amusedly, they went out together.

"We're going down the river," he told her quite positively. "I want
you to sit upon a certain old log I know while I talk to you."

For a little he thought that she would refuse. Then, a hotter flush in
her cheeks, she turned with him, passing down the river bank. They
drew abreast of his dugout, Ygerne glancing swiftly in at the open
door. They had grown silent, even Drennen finding little to say as
they moved on. But at length they came to the log, having passed
around many green willowed kinks in the Little MacLeod. The girl,
sitting, either consciously or through chance, took the attitude in
which Drennen had come upon her with the dual fever in his blood.

Thus Drennen's idyl began. Ygerne, staring straight out before her
with wide, unseeing eyes, spoke swiftly, her voice a low monotone that
fitted in well with the musing eyes. She loved him; she told him so in
a strangely quiet tone and Drennen, wishing to believe, believed and
thrilled under her words like the strings of an instrument under a
sweeping hand. She told him that while he had been unsleeping last
night neither had she slept.

"I didn't know that love came this way," she said. "It was easy to
find interest in you; you were wrapped in it like a cloak. Then I
think I came to hate you, just as you said that you hated me . . ."

"I was mad, Ygerne!" he broke in contritely.

"Or are we mad now?" she laughed, a vague hint of trouble on her lips.
"You say we don't know mu