Into the Primitive Part 32

"Wonderful! Really, you are very, very clever! But why should you go to all this trouble, when the barricade--"

"Well, you see, it's best to be on the safe side."

"But it's absurd for you to go to all this needless work. Not that I do not appreciate your kind thought for my safety. Yet look at your hands!"

Blake hastened to put his bleeding hands behind him.

"They are no sight for a lady!" he muttered apologetically.

"Go and wash them at once, and I'll put on a dressing."

Blake glowed with frank pleasure, yet shook his head.

"No, thank you, Miss Jenny. You needn't bother. They'll do all right."

"You must! It would please me."

"Why, then, of course-- But first, I want to make sure you understand fastening the door. Try the bars yourself."

She obeyed, sliding the bars in and out until he nodded his satisfaction.

"Good!" he said. "Now promise me you'll slide 'em fast every night."

"If you ask it. But why?"

"I want to make perfectly safe."

"Safe? But am I not secure with--"

"Look here, Miss Leslie; I'm not going to say anything about anybody."

"Perhaps you had better say no more, Mr. Blake."

"That's right. But whatever happens, you'll believe I've done my best, won't you?--even if I'm not a-- Promise me straight, you'll lock up tight every night."

"Very well, I promise," responded the girl, not a little troubled by the strangeness of his expression.

He turned at once, swung open the door, and went out. During supper he was markedly taciturn, and immediately afterwards went off to his bed.

That night Miss Leslie dutifully fastened herself in with all six bars.

She wakened at dawn, and hastened out to prepare Blake's breakfast, but she found herself too late. There were evidences that he had eaten and gone off before dawn. The stretching frame of one of the antelope skins had been moved around by the fire, and on the smooth inner surface of the hide was a laconic note, written with charcoal in a firm, bold hand:--

"_Exploring inland. Back by night, if can_."

She bit her lip in her disappointment, for she had planned to show him how much she appreciated his absurd but well-meant concern for her safety. As it was, he had gone off without a word, and left her to the questionable pleasure of a _tete-a-tete_ with Winthrope. Hoping to avoid this, she hurried her preparations for a day on the cliff. But before she could get off, Winthrope sauntered up, hiding his yawns behind a hand which had regained most of its normal plumpness. His eye was at once caught by the charcoal note.

"Ah!" he drawled; "really now, this is too kind of him to give us the pleasure of his absence all day!"

"Ye-es!" murmured Miss Leslie. "Permit me to add that you will also have the pleasure of my absence. I am going now."

Winthrope looked down, and began to speak very rapidly: "Miss Genevieve, I--I wish to apologize. I've thought it over. I've made a mistake--I--I mean, my conduct the other day was vile, utterly vile! Permit me to appeal to your considerateness for a man who has been unfortunate--who, I mean, has been--er--was carried away by his feelings. Your favoring of that bloom--er--that--er--bounder so angered me that I--that I--"

"Mr. Winthrope!" interrupted the girl, "I will have you to understand that you do not advance yourself in my esteem by such references to Mr.

Blake."

"Aye! aye, that Blake!" panted Winthrope. "Don't you see? It's 'im, an' that blossom! W'en a man's daffy--w'en 'e's in love!--"

Miss Leslie burst into a nervous laugh; but checked herself on the instant.

"Really, Mr. Winthrope!" she exclaimed, "you must pardon me. I--I never knew that cultured Englishmen ever dropped their h's. As it happens, you know, I never saw one excited before this."

"Ah, yes; to be sure--to be sure!" murmured Winthrope, in an odd tone.

The girl threw out her hand in a little gesture of protest.

"Really, I'm sorry to have hurt--to have been so thoughtless!"

Winthrope stood silent. She spoke again: "I'll do what you ask. I'll make allowances for your--for your feelings towards me, and will try to forget all you said the other day. Let me begin by asking a favor of you."

"Ah, Miss Genevieve, anything, to be sure, that I may do!"

"It is that I wish your opinion. When Mr. Blake finished that absurd door last evening, he would not tell me why he had built it--only a vague statement about my safety."

"Ah! He did not go into particulars?" drawled Winthrope.

"No, not even a hint; and he looked so--odd."

Winthrope slowly rubbed his soft palms on upon the other.

"Do you--er--really desire to know his--the motive which actuated him?"

he murmured.

"I should not have mentioned it to you, if I did not," she answered.

"Well--er--" He hesitated and paused for a full minute. "You see, it is a rather difficult undertaking to intimate such a matter to a lady--just the right touch of delicacy, you know. But I will begin by explaining that I have known it since the first--"

"Known what?"

"Of that bound--of--er--Blake's trouble."

"Trouble?"

"Ah! Perhaps I should have said affliction; yes, that is the better word. To own the truth, the fellow has some good qualities. It was no doubt because he realised, when in his better moments--"

"Better moments? Mr. Winthrope, I am not a child. In justice both to myself and to Mr. Blake, I must ask you to speak out plainly."

"My dear Miss Leslie, may I first ask if you have not observed how strangely at times the fellow acts,--'looks odd,' as you put it,--how he falls into melancholia or senseless rages? I may truthfully state that he has three times threatened my life."