She drew her, hand away from him, gently, but significantly. "I know you can't believe me, Jeems. It is impossible for you to believe me."
"And you don't want me to believe you, Marette."
"Yes--I do. You must believe me."
"But the tress of hair--your hair--round Kedsty's neck--"
He stopped. His words, spoken gently as they were, seemed brutal to him. Yet he could not see that they affected her. She did not flinch. He saw no tremor of horror. Steadily she continued to look into the fire. And his brain grew confused. Never in all his experience had he seen such absolute and unaffected self-control. And somehow, it chilled him. It chilled him even as he wanted to reach out and gather her close in his arms, and pour his love into her ears, entreating her to tell him everything, to keep nothing back from him that might help in the fight he was going to make.
And then she said, "Jeems, if we should be caught by the Police--it would probably be quite soon, wouldn't it?"
"They won't catch us."
"But our greatest danger of being caught is right now, isn't it?" she insisted.
Kent took out his watch and leaned over to look at it in the fireglow. "It is three o'clock," he said. "Give me another day and night, Gray Goose, and the Police will never find us."
For a moment or two more she was silent. Then her hand reached out, and her fingers twined softly round his thumb again. "Jeems--when we are safe--when we are sure the Police won't find us--I will tell you all that I know--about what happened in Kedsty's room. And I will tell you--about--the hair. I will tell you--everything." Her fingers tightened almost fiercely. "Everything," she repeated. "I will tell you about that in Kedsty's room--and I will tell you about myself--and after that--I am afraid--you won't like me."
"I love you," he said, making no movement to touch her. "No matter what you tell me, Gray Goose, I shall love you."
She gave a little cry, scarcely more than a broken note in her throat, and Kent--had her face been turned toward him then--would have seen the glory that came into it, and into her eyes, like a swift flash of light--and passed as swiftly away.
What he did see, when she turned her head, were eyes caught suddenly by something at the cabin door. He looked. Water was trickling in slowly over the sill.