Drunkenly he got to his feet and leaned against a willow.
His forces were spent, his muscles weighted as with lead. But it was not
this alone that made his breath come short and raggedly.
Sheba had flung herself down beside her lover. She had caught him
tightly in her arms so that his disfigured face lay against her warm
bosom. In the eyes lifted to those of the mine-owner was an
unconquerable defiance.
"He's mine--mine, you murderer," she panted fiercely. "If you kill him,
you must kill me first."
The man she had once promised to marry was looking at a different woman
from the girl he had known. The soft, shy youth of her was gone. She was
a forest mother of the wilds ready to fight for her young, a wife ready
to go to the stake for the husband of her choice. An emotion primitive
and poignant had transformed her.
His eyes burned at her the question his parched lips and throat could
scarcely utter. "So you ... love him?"
But though it was in form a question he knew already the answer. For the
first time in his life he began to taste the bitterness of defeat.
Always he had won what he coveted by brutal force or his stark will. But
it was beyond him to compel the love of a girl who had given her heart
to another.
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