gerne and they two would slip away
together. He would take her with him so that her eyes might be the
first to see with him the golden gash in the breast of earth. He would
tell her: "It is yours, Ygerne."

So he just said lightly:

"Wait a little, Ygerne. Wait until I come back from Lebarge. I'll be
gone a week at most. And then . . . and then, Ygerne . . ."

He had been holding her a little away from him so that he could look
into her eyes, his soul drinking deep of the wine of them. Now he
broke off sharply, a swift frown driving for the instant the radiance
of his joy from his face. He had forgotten that he and Ygerne Bellaire
were not in truth the only two created beings upon the bosom of earth.
And now, from around a bend in the river came a low voice singing,
Garcia coming into view, Garcia's eternal song upon his lips:

"The perfume of roses, of little red roses;
(Thou art a rose, oh, so sweet, _corazon_!)"

Garcia's eyes, a little glint of slumbrous fire in their midnight
depths, were upon the man and the girl. He paused a moment, stared,
bowed deeply with the old dramatic sweep of his hat. A hot spurt of
rage flared across Drennen's brain; this was no accidental meeting.
Garcia had seen them leave the Settlement and had followed. Then the
burning wrath changed quickly to hard, cold, watchful anger. Through a
mere whim of the little gods of chance he had seen another face in the
thicket or young elms not twenty paces from Ygerne's log, a face with
hard, malevolent eyes, peaked at the bottom with a coppery Vandyck
beard. If Ramon Garcia had seen, certainly Sefton had both seen and
heard.

When Drennen's long strides had carried him to the thicket there was
only the down trodden grass to show him where Sefton had stood for
perhaps ten minutes. When he had come back to Ygerne Ramon Garcia had
ended his stare, had turned with his shoulders lifting, and twirling
his mustaches had gone back toward the Settlement.

"Ygerne," cried Drennen harshly, "why do you travel with men like that
Sefton and Lemarc?"

Her voice was cool, her eyes were cool, as she answered him.

"Marc Lemarc is my cousin. Captain Sefton is his friend. Is that
reason enough?"

"No. What have the three of you in common?"

She caught up one knee between her clasped hands, once more seated, and
looked up at him curiously. For a moment she seemed to hesitate; then
she spoke quietly, her eyes always intent upon his