ou hate me . . . because I made you love me?" she asked, laughing
a little, holding him back from her for the last deliciously shy second.

"Do you hate me, Ygerne, because always I was brute to you?"

Then she no longer made play at pressing him back from her.

"We must begin all over," she said at last. "Love is not love which
does not trust to the uttermost. We both have lacked faith, David,
dear. No matter what we see with our own eyes, hear with our own ears,
we must never doubt again. You will always believe in me . . .
now . . . won't you, David?"

They were silent a little, busied with the same thoughts; they lived
over the few meetings here; they remembered the rainbow upon the
mountain flank, the dinner at Joe's Lunch Counter; they were saying
good-bye to MacLeod's and were looking forward to Lebarge, the railroad
and what lay for them beyond. . . .

Suddenly Drennen cried out strangely, and Ygerne, startled, looked at
him wonderingly.

"What is it?" she asked quickly.

He pointed to something lying in the grass at the side of the log; just
a few bits of weather spoiled cardboard which once upon a time had been
a big box filled with candy for her. He told her what it was. Her
hand shut down tight upon his arm; he could feel a little tremor shake
her; then, deeply touched by this little thing, the girl was crying
softly. A tear splashed upon his hand, a tear like a pearl.

"And there was something else, Ygerne," he said gently. "Look. The
winter has left it and no man has come here to find it."

It was peeping out at him from the little hollow upon the log's uneven
surface where he had dropped it, a glint of gold from under the piece
of bark which he had put over it and which had not been thrust aside by
the winter winds.

"I got it for you at the same time, Ygerne," he told her. "It was to
be my first little present to you. . . ."

Winter snow and spring thaw had done no harm to the gold which could
not rust nor to the pearls which could not tarnish. . . . Silently she
bared her throat that he might fasten the pendant necklace for her.
His hands trembled and a strange awkwardness came upon him. But in the
end it was done.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOLF BREED***

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