The brightness expressive of the gayety of her nature departed from her eyes.  She looked fixedly at the man’s dark face, with its gray, deep-set, penetrative eyes, its bluish jaw, and knitted brows.  It frightened her, someway, as it never had before.  He had magnetized her always—­sometimes more than now, but his influence crept upon her subtly even here.

“But I—­I think I’d rather not—­just yet,” she faltered, crimsoning and dropping her gaze to the table.  “You promised not to—­to urge me again—­at least till I’ve spoken to Glen.”

“But I could not have known—­forseen these conditions,” he told her, leaning further towards her across the table.  “Why shouldn’t we be married now—­at once?  A six months’ engagement is certainly long enough.  Your position here is—­well—­almost dubious.  You must see that.  It isn’t right of me—­decent—­not to make you my wife immediately.  I wish to do so—­I wish it very much.”

She arose, as if to wrench herself free from the spell he was casting upon her.

“I’m all right—­I’m quite all right,” she said.  “I’d rather not—­just now.  There’s no one here who cares a penny who or what I am.  If my position here is misunderstood—­it can do no harm.  I’d rather you wouldn’t say anything further about it—­just at present.”

Her agitation did not escape him.  If he thought of the horseman who had carried her off while sending himself to the convicts, his plan for vengeance only deepened.

“You must have some reason for refusing.”  He too arose.

“No—­no particular reason,” she answered, artlessly walking around the table, apparently to pick up a button from the floor, but actually to avoid his contact.  “I just don’t wish to—­to be married now—­here—­that’s all.  I ask you to keep your promise—­not to ask it while we remain.”

He had feared to lose her a score of times before.  He feared it now more potently than ever.  And there was much that he must ask.  The risk of giving her a fright was not to be incurred.

“Very well,” he said resignedly, “but—­it’s very hard to wait.”

“Won’t you sit down?” she asked him, an impulse of gratitude upon her.  “Now do be good and sensible, and tell me all about Glen.”

She returned to the table and resumed her seat.

Bostwick sat opposite and drew his forged letter from his pocket.  He had placed it in Glenmore’s envelope after tearing the young man’s letter into scraps.

“This letter,” said he, “was sent from way down in the desert—­from Starlight, another new camp.  It looks to me as if the boy has struck something very important.  I’ll read you what he says—­or you can read it for yourself.”

“No, no—­read it.  I’d rather listen.”

He read it haltingly, as one who puzzles over unfamiliar writing.  Its effect sank in the deeper for the method.  Beth was open-eyed with wonder, admiration, and delight over all that Glen had done and was about to accomplish.  She rose to the bait with sisterly eagerness.