"Almost, sir," he repeated. "I almost regret it."

"Then go back--leave us--report us dead!" I broke out, savagely. It was moments before I could accept this old life again offered me.

"She is a splendid girl, a n.o.ble being," I said to him, slowly, at last.

"She saved me when I was sick and unable to travel. There is nothing I could do that would pay the debt I owe to her. She is a n.o.ble woman, a princess among women, body and soul."

"She is like her mother," said he, quietly. "She was too good for this.

Sir, you have done my family a grievous wrong. You have ruined my daughter's life."

Now at last I could talk. I struck my hand hard on his shoulder and looked him full in the eye. "Colonel Meriwether," I said to him, "I am ashamed of you."

"What do you mean?" He frowned sternly and shook off my hand.

"I brought her through," I said, "and if it would do any good, I would lie down here and die for her. If what I say is not true, draw up your men for a firing squad and let us end it. I don't care to go back to Laramie."

"What good would that do?" said he. "It's the girl's _name_ that's compromised, man! Why, the news of this is all over the country--the wires have carried it both sides of the mountains; the papers are full of it in the East. You have been gone nearly three months together, and all the world knows it. Don't you suppose all the world will _talk_? Did I not see--" he motioned his hand toward our encampment.

He babbled of such things, small, unimportant, to me, late from large things in life. I interrupted long enough to tell him briefly of our journey, of our hardships, of what we had gone through, of how my sickness had rendered it impossible for us to return at once, of how we had wandered, with what little judgment remained to us, how we had lived in the meantime.

He shook his head. "I know men," said he.

"Yes," said I, "I would have been no man worth the name had I not loved your daughter. And I admit to you that I shall never love another woman, not in all my life."

In answer he flung down on the ground in front of me something that he carried--the scroll of our covenant, signed by my name and in part by hers.

"What does this mean?" he asked.

"It means," said I, "what it says; that here or anywhere, in sickness or in health, in adversity or prosperity, until I lie down to die and she beside me in her time, we two are in the eye of G.o.d married; and in the eye of man would have been, here or wherever else we might be."

I saw his face pale; but a somber flame came into his eyes. "And you say this--you, _after all I know regarding you_!"

Again I felt that old chill of terror and self-reproach strike to my heart. I saw my guilt once more, horrible as though an actual presence.

I remembered what Ellen Meriwether had said to me regarding any other or earlier covenant. I recalled my troth, plighted earlier, before I had ever seen her,--my faith, pledged in another world. So, seeing myself utterly ruined in my own sight and his and hers, I turned to him at length, with no pride in my bearing.

"So I presume Gordon Orme has told you," I said to him. "You know of Grace Sheraton, back there?"

His lips but closed the tighter. "Have you told her--have you told this to my girl?" he asked, finally.

"Draw up your file!" I cried, springing to my feet. "Execute me! I deserve it. No, I have not told her. I planned to do so--I should never have allowed her to sign her name there before I had told her everything--been fair to her as I could. But her accident left her weak--I could not tell her--a thousand things delayed it. Yes, it was my fault."

He looked me over with contempt. "You are not fit to touch the shoe on my girl's foot," he said slowly. "But now, since this thing has begun, since you have thus involved her and compromised her, and as I imagine in some foul way have engaged her affections--now, I say, it must go on.

When we get to Laramie, by G.o.d! sir, you shall marry that girl. And then out you go, and never see her face again. She is too good for you, but where you can be of use to her, for this reason, you shall be used."

I seated myself, my head in my hands, and pondered. He was commanding me to do that which was my dearest wish in life. But he was commanding me to complete my own folly. "Colonel Meriwether," said I to him, finally, "if it would do her any good I would give up my life for her. But her father can neither tell me how nor when my marriage ceremony runs; nor can he tell me when to leave the side of the woman who is my wife. I am subject to the orders of no man in the world."

"You refuse to do what you have planned to do? Sir, that shows you as you are. You proposed to--to live with her here, but not be bound to her elsewhere!"

"It is not true!" I said to him in somber anger. "I proposed to put before her the fact of my own weakness, of my own self-deception, which also was deception of her. I propose to do that now."

"If you did, she would refuse to look at you again."

"I know it, but it must be done. I must take my chances."

"And your chances mean this alternative--either that my girl's reputation shall be ruined all over the country--all through the Army, where she is known and loved--or else that her heart must be broken.

This is what it means, Mr. Cowles. This is what you have brought to my family."

"Yes," I said to him, slowly, "this is what I have brought."

"Then which do you choose, sir?" he demanded of me.

"I choose to break her heart!" I answered. "Because that is the truth, and that is right. I only know one way to ride, and that is straight."

He smiled at me coldly in his frosty beard. "That sounds well from you!"

he said bitterly. "Ellen!" he raised his voice. "Ellen, I say, come here at once!"

It was my ear which first heard the rustling of her footsteps at the edge of the thicket as she approached. She came before us slowly, halting, leaning on her crutch. A soft flush shone through the brown upon her cheeks.

I shall not forget in all my life the picture of her as she stood.

Neither shall I forget the change which came across her face as she saw us sitting there silent, cold, staring at her. Then, lovable in her rags, beautiful in her savagery, the gentleness of generations of culture in all her mien in spite of her rude surroundings, she stepped up and laid her hand upon her father's shoulder, one finger half pointing at the ragged scroll of hide which lay upon the ground before us. I loved her--ah, how I loved her then!

"I signed that, father," she said gently. "I was going to sign it, little by little, a letter each week. We were engaged--nothing more. But here or anywhere, some time, I intend to marry Mr. Cowles. This I have promised of my own free will. He has been both man and gentleman, father. I love him."

I heard the groan which came from his throat. She sprang back. "What is it?" she said. The old fire of her disposition again broke out.

"What!" she cried. "You object? Listen, I will sign my name now--I will finish it--give me--give me--" She sought about on the ground for something which would leave a mark. "I say I have not been his, but will be, father--as I like, when I like--now, this very night if I choose--forever! He has done everything for me--I trust him--I know he is a man of honor, that he--" Her voice broke as she looked at my face.

"But what--what _is_ it?" she demanded, brokenly, in her own eyes something of the horror which sat in mine. I say I see her picture now, tall, straight, sweet, her hands on her lifting bosom, eagerness and anxiety fighting on her face.

"Ellen, child, Mr. Cowles has something to tell you."

Then some one, in a voice which sounded like mine, but was not mine, told her--told her the truth, which sounded so like a lie. Some one, myself, yet not myself, went on, cruelly, blackening all the sweet blue sky for her. Some one--I suppose it was myself, late free--felt the damp of an iron yoke upon his neck.

I saw her knees sink beneath her, but she shrank back when I would have reached out an arm as of old.

"I hate that woman!" she blazed. "Suppose she does love you--do I not love you more? Let her lose--some one must lose!" But at the next moment her anger had changed to doubt, to horror. I saw her face change, saw her hand drop to her side.

"It is not that you loved another girl," she whispered, "but that you have deceived _me_--here, when I was in your power. Oh, it was not right! How could you! Oh, how could you!"

Then once more she changed. The flame of her thoroughbred soul came back to her. Her courage saved her from shame. Her face flushed, she stood straight. "I hate _you!_" she cried to me. "Go! I will never see you any more."

Still the bright sun shone on. A little bird trilled in the thicket near.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

THE YOKE