But again an oath whipped from her lips, her glance darkened.  She drew back from him with the horse-shoe frown showing plainly on her forehead.

He looked at her, his whole face broken up, his mouth trembling, something like tears in his eyes.  “Why, Pearl,” he faltered, “ain’t you glad to see me?  Why, here I been waiting all these damned, dreary months, never thinking of any one but you, never even looking at another woman, just dreaming of the moment when I could put my arms around you again and know that you loved me and were mine.”

A hard and bitter smile showed on her mouth.  “Yours!  Loved you!” she cried.  “My God!  You!”

Her unmistakable, unconcealed scorn was like a dagger thrust in the heart, and that stab of pain stirred his anger and restored him to himself.  His face went almost purple, his cold eyes blazed.  “Say,” he cried roughly, “what are you driving at, anyway?  Come down to cases now.”  He caught her by the wrist.  “What did you let me come up here for?  Just to make a monkey of me?  Have you been treasuring spite against me all these months, and is this your way of getting even?”

She dragged her hand away from him and stepped back.  “I let you come, if you want to know it, because I thought I was in love with you.  Lord, think of it!” she laughed drearily.  “I haven’t fooled you any worse than I have myself.”

He rubbed his hand across his eyes.  “It ain’t true,” he said loudly, positively, defiantly.

“Hush,” she exclaimed, darting forward.  “What was that?” There was a sound as if some one had trod the underbrush not many feet away.  She listened intently a moment, a wild fear at her heart that Seagreave might have returned unexpectedly.  It was probably some animal, for there was no further sound.  “Oh,” she cried, in involuntary relief, “it must have been Jose!”

A gleam came into his eyes, a light of triumph as at the remembrance of some potent weapon of which he had been carelessly forgetful.  “And who is Jose?” he asked.

She lifted her startled gaze to his, the question recalled to her her own unthinking speech.  “Oh, one of the miners,” she said indifferently.

He knew her too well to fancy that he could trap her into any new admissions, and he had no wish to arouse her suspicions.  Therefore he dropped the subject, especially as he felt fully answered.

He leaned against a tree and, drawing a cigar from his pocket, lighted it, although the hand with which he did so trembled.  “I guess some explanations are in order between you and me,” he said.  “I guess it’s about time that you began to get it into your head that you can’t make a fool of me all the time.  I’m ready and willing to admit that there was some excuse for you down in the desert.  I made a bad break there, which I’m freely conceding was no way to treat a lady.  But that don’t explain or excuse the way you’ve treated me this morning,” he laughed bitterly.  “There’s no way to explain it unless living here in the mountains has gone to your head or unless there’s another man.  Is there?” his eyes pierced her.  “Is there?”