“No—no!” he cried. “Judith—honey—I can’t do that. Why, I’d be robbing you of everything in the world. Your kin would turn against you. Your farm would be lost to you, I reckon—I don’t know when I’ll be able to go back and claim mine.”
In the moment of strained silence that followed this speech, with a sense of violent painful revulsion the girl pushed him back when he would timidly have clung to her. What woman ever appreciated prudence in a lover? It is not a lover’s virtue. Her farm—her farm! He could listen to her confession of love for him, and speculate upon the chances of her losing her farm by it! She had one shamed, desperate instant when she would have been glad to deny the words she had spoken. Then Creed, reading her anger and despair by the light of his own sorrows, said brokenly:
“You feel—you’re offended at me now—but Judith, you wouldn’t love me if I had taken you at your word, and ruined all your chances in life. I—Judith—dear—I’ll make this thing right yet. I’ll come back—and you’ll forgive me then.”
With a sudden flaring up of strength he took quiet mastery of the situation. He kissed her tenderly, but sadly, not such a kiss as either could ever have imagined their first would be.
“I love you too well to let you wed a man that’s fixed like I am—a man that’s made such a failure of life—a fugitive—a fellow that has nothing to offer you, and no more standing with your people than a hound dog. I love you better than I do myself or my comfort—or even my life.”
In anguished silence Judith received the caress; dumb with misery she got to her horse. Creed stood looking up at her for their last words, when, with a rattle and clang, the train from the North swept in and halted. Selim jibed and fought the bit as any sensible mountain horse feels himself entitled to do under similar circumstances; but Judith heeded him almost not at all.
“My Lord—who’s that?” she cried, staring toward the lighted train where the figure of a man mounted the platform.
“What is it?” queried Creed.
“Hit looked like Blatch,” whispered the girl; “but I reckon it couldn’t a-been.”
“Blatch!” echoed Creed, all on fire in an instant—where now was her poor invalid whose head she had pillowed, of whom she had thought to take care? “Blatch Turrentine!—Good-bye, honey—you mustn’t be seen with me. If Blatch is here I’ve got to find and face him. You see that, don’t you?—You understand.”