"N-never mind," he gabbled hurriedly. "Don't come in! It's not fit to receive you! It's better out here!" Little beads of sweat were springing out on his forehead.
His whole bearing had been so wild and stupefied since his waking, that they attached small importance to this display of terror. Natalie patiently essayed to speak again; but again he interrupted.
His face cleared. "You've left your outfit somewhere back on the trail," he said eagerly. "I'll go back with you; and we can talk things over quietly there!" He actually started toward the watercourse, walking with jerky, uneven steps.
Natalie made no move to follow. "I will say what I have to say here," she spoke after him.
Mabyn was voluble, scarcely coherent in his incontinent desire to take her away from the hut. Natalie waited, letting him talk himself out. Finally compelled to give in, he returned with strange, apprehensive glances around the hut, and over the summits of the hills behind. Garth thought his brain was beginning to be affected by a solitary life.
However, he now listened patiently enough.
"You have not written to your mother or to me in many months," began Natalie coldly; "and your letters for three years past have given us no information. Your mother's whole thought is of you; and through her anxiety and suspense she is worn to a shadow of what she was; the doctors tell her she has a mortal disease that must soon prevail."
In spite of herself Natalie's voice softened as she delivered her pitiful plea; but it was not from any kindness for him. "She has been very kind to me all these years," she went on, "and I, to ease her what I could of the torment of her mind during her last days, volunteered to go with her to find you. Her age and her infirmities prevented her from coming any farther than Prince George. I have been fortunate in finding friends who have assisted me the rest of the way. I have come to beg you, on behalf of your mother, to let her see you before she dies. She is waiting in Prince George. She bade me tell you that neither poverty, misfortune nor disgrace could abate any of her love for you; that she would die happy if she might once more press your hand against her cheek."
Garth watched Mabyn narrowly while Natalie was speaking. He saw by the man's rapt expression that her voice charmed his senses, while the purport of what she said was wholly lost on his consciousness. When her voice broke a little at the close, Mabyn's lips parted, and his breath came quicker--but it was no tenderness for a devoted parent, only a passion purely selfish, that caused his lack-lustre eyes to glitter again.