.

"Nonsense," he told her heartily. "You've got a right to be tired. But
when you've had some hot lunch and a cup of hot coffee you'll be tip-top
again. You'll see."

King unsaddled and tethered the horses where they could browse and rest
and roll; built his little fire and went about lunch-getting with a joy
he had never known in the old accustomed routine before. Now and then he
glanced toward Gloria; he could not help that. But he saw that she was
lying back, her eyes closed, and while his heart went out to her he did
not force his sympathy on her. She was tired and, what was more, she had
every right and reason to be tired. He hoped that she might get three
winks of sleep. When he came near her for the coffee-pot he tiptoed. She
seemed to be asleep.

But Gloria was not asleep. Never had her mind raced so. It was done and
she was Mark King's wife! Higher and higher loomed that fact above all
other considerations. But there were other considerations; her father
hurt, she did not know how badly; her mother mystified, by now perhaps
informed of Gloria's marriage; Gratton with the poison extracted from
his fangs had the fangs still; gold ahead somewhere, in caves where men
long ago had laboured and fought and snarled at one another like
starving wolves and died; Brodie somewhere, Brodie with the horrible
face. She shivered and stirred restlessly, and King, who saw everything,
thought that she had dreamed a bad dream. But lunch was ready; he came
to her with plate and cup. And again Gloria did her best to smile
gratefully.

"You are so good to me, Mark," she said. Her eyes were thoughtful; would
he always be good to her? Even when--but she was too weary to think. It
seemed to her that only now was she beginning to feel the effects of all
she had been through.

"I want to learn how to be good to you, wife of mine," he said very
gently. "That is all on earth I ask. Just to make you happy."

"You love me so much, Mark?" she asked, as one who wondered at what she
had read in his low voice and glimpsed in his eyes.

"Gloria," he told her gently, "I don't understand this thing they call
love yet; it is too new, too wonderful. But I do know that in all the
world there is nothing else that matters."

"Not even Gus Ingle's red, red gold?" she said rather more lightly than
she had spoken.

"Not even Gus Ingle's red, red gold."

She looked at him long and curiously.

"You would do anything you could to make me happy?