"Helen!" he cried hoa.r.s.ely, driving her fear deeper into her heart by his altered voice. "Helen!" She trembled, and he made a gesture of hopelessness and involuntarily stepped toward her, letting the door swing shut behind him. He stood just within the room, rigidly erect, his eyes meeting hers in the silence of strong emotion. Breathlessly she retreated as he advanced, as if instinct warned her of what he had to tell her, until the table was between them; and a spasm of pain flickered across his face as he noticed it, leaving him hard and stern again, but in his eyes was a look of despair, a keen misery which softened her and drew her toward him even while she feared him.

The silence became unbearable and at last she could endure it no longer.

"What is it?" she breathed, tensely. "What have you to tell me?"

His eyes never wavered from her face, fascinated in despair of what he must read there, much as he dreaded it, and he answered her from between set lips, much as a man would p.r.o.nounce his own death sentence. "I have broken my word," he said, harshly.

"Broken your word--to me?" she asked.

"Yes."

Her face brightened and was softened by a child-like wonder, for she felt relieved in a degree, and unconsciously she moved nearer to him. "What is it--what have you done?"

He regarded her without appraising the change in her expression and his reply was as harsh and stern as his first statement, accompanied by no excuses nor words of extenuation. "I have killed a man," he said.

A shiver pa.s.sed over her and her eyes went closed for a moment. The great choice was at hand now, and in her heart a fierce, short battle raged; on one side was arrayed her early training, all her teachings, all regard for the ideas of law and order which she had absorbed in the East, where human life was safeguarded as the first necessity; and on the other was the Unwritten Law of the range as exemplified by The Orphan.

Blood, and human blood, was precious, and her early environment fought bitterly against this regime of direct justice, so startlingly driven into her mind by his bold, cold admission. And then, he had sinned in this way again after he had promised her not to do so. The last thought dominated her and she opened her eyes and looked at him hopefully.

"Perhaps," she said, eagerly, "perhaps you could not avoid it--perhaps you were forced to do it."

"No."

"Oh!" she cried. "You did not--you did not shoot him down without warning!

I _know_ you didn't!"

"No, not that," he said slowly. "And, besides, this was his third offense.

Twice I have given him his life, and I would have done so again but for what I discovered after I faced him." He paused for a moment and then continued, with more feeling in his voice, a ring of victory and an irrepressible elation. "I found that he was the man for whom I have been looking for fifteen years, and whom I had sworn to kill. He killed my father, killed him like a dog and without a chance for life, hung him to a tree on his own land. And when I learned that, when he had confessed to me, I forgot the new game, I forgot everything but the watch in my hand slowly ticking away his life, the time I had given him to make his peace with G.o.d--and I hated the slow seconds, I begrudged him every movement of the hands. Then I shot him, and I was glad, so glad--but oh, dear! If you--if you----"

His voice wavered and broke and he dropped to his knees before her with bowed head as she came slowly toward him and seized the hem of her gown in both hands, kissing it pa.s.sionately, burying his face in its folds like a tired boy at his mother's knee.

Her eyes were filled with tears and they rimmed her lashes as she looked down on the man at her feet. Bending, she touched him and then placed her hands on his head, tenderly kissing the tangled hair in loving forgiveness.

"Dear, dear boy," she murmured softly. "Don't, dear heart. Don't, you must not--oh, you must not! Please--come with me; get up, dear, and sit with me over here in the corner; then you shall tell me all about it. I am sure you have not done wrong--and if you have--don't you know I love you, boy? Don't you know I love you?"

He stirred slightly, as if awakening from a troubled sleep, and slowly raised his head and looked at her with doubt in his eyes, for it was so much like a dream--perhaps it was one. But he saw a light on her face, a light which a man sees only on the face of one woman and which blinds him against all other lights forever. Then it was true, all true--he had heard aright! "Helen!" he cried, "Helen!" and the ring in his voice brought new tears to her eyes. He sprang to his feet, tense, eager, all his nerves tingling, and his quirt hissed through the air and snapped a defiance, a warning to the world as he clasped her to him. "I _knew_, I _knew!_" he cried pa.s.sionately. "In my heart I _knew_ you were a thoroughbred!"

He tilted her head back, but she laughed low with delight and eluded him, leading him to a chair, the chair he had occupied on the occasion of his first visit, and then drew a low, rough footrest beside him and seated herself at his feet, her elbows resting on his knees and her chin in her hands. He looked down into the upturned face and then glanced swiftly about the homelike room and back to her face again. She snuggled tightly against his knees and waited patiently for his story.

He sighed contentedly and touched her cheek reverently and then told her all of the story of Tex Williard, from the very beginning to the very end, from the time he had seen Tex bending over one of his father's cows to the last scene in the thicket. When he had finished, Helen took his head between her hands, pressing it warmly as she nodded wisely to show that she understood. He looked deep into her eyes and then suddenly bent his head until his lips touched her ear: "Helen, darling," he whispered, "how long must I wait?"

"Why, you scamp!" she exclaimed, teasingly, threatening to draw away from him. "You haven't even told me that you love me!"

He pressed her hands tightly and laughed aloud, joyously, filled with an elated, effervescent gladness which surged over him in waves of delight: "Haven't I? Oh, but you know better, dear. Many and many times I have told you that, and in many ways, and you knew it and understood. You never doubted it, and I hope," he added seriously, "that you never will."

"I never will, dear."

They did not hear Grace Ritchie in the kitchen, did not hear her quiet step as it crossed the threshold and stopped, and then tiptoed to the rear door and sped lightly around the house to the street, and down it to where Mrs. Shields and Mary were walking toward the house. They did not know that half an hour had pa.s.sed since the coming of the quiet step and the three women, and that the supper was hopelessly ruined. They knew nothing--and Everything: they had learned the Great Happiness.

THE END

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