s on the
light. She rocked herself from side to side, and "Swan forgets, Swan
forgets!" she murmured, like the burden of a lullaby.

"Where is your camp?" Mackenzie asked her, thinking he must take her
home.

Hertha did not reply. For a long time she sat leaning, staring at the
lantern. One of the dogs approached her, bristles raised in fear,
creeping with stealthy movement, feet lifted high, stretched its neck
to sniff her, fearfully, backed away, and composed itself to rest. But
now and again it lifted its head to sniff the scent that came from
this strange being, and which it could not analyze for good or ill.
Mackenzie marked its troubled perplexity, almost as much at sea in his
own reckoning of her as the dog.

"No, I could not show you the money and go away with you leaving Swan
living behind," she said at last, as if she had decided it finally in
her mind. "That I have told Earl Reid. Swan would follow me to the
edge of the world; he would strangle my neck between his hands and
throw me down dead at his feet."

"He'd have a right to if you did him that kind of a trick," Mackenzie
said.

"Earl Reid comes with promises," she said, unmindful of Mackenzie; "he
sits close by me in the dark, he holds me by the hand. But kiss me I
will not permit; that yet belongs to Swan." She looked up, sweeping
Mackenzie with her appealing eyes. "But if you would kill him, then
my lips would be hot for your kiss, brave man--I would bend down and
draw your soul into mine through a long, long kiss!"

"Hush!" Mackenzie commanded, sternly. "Such thoughts belong to Swan,
as much as the other. Don't talk that way to me--I don't want to hear
any more of it."

Hertha sat looking at him, that cast of dull hopelessness in her face
again, the light dead in her eyes.

"There are strange noises that I hear in the night," she said,
woefully; "there is a dead child that never drew breath pressed
against my heart."

"You'd better go back to your wagon," he suggested, getting to his
feet.

"There is no wagon, only a canvas spread over the brushes, where I lie
like a wolf in a hollow. A beast I am become, among the beasts of the
field!"

"Come--I'll go with you," he offered, holding out his hand to lift
her.

She did not seem to notice him, but sat stroking her face as if to
ease a pain out of it, or open the fount of her tears which much
weeping must have drained long, long ago.

Mackenzie believed she was going insane, in the slo