"Because I will not marry him!"
There is an enthusiasm and determination in the girl's manner that makes this gentleman—who is well accustomed to reading men, and perhaps has had some experience, in his plural marriages, of women—suddenly cry out: "No, you will not wed Livingston because you love another!"
"Who is that?" says the girl, attempting a laugh, but her face becoming very red in the dim light of flickering tallow and kerosene oil.
"Harry Lawrence, who hates Bishop Tranyon of Salt Lake so much that I hardly think he will marry the daughter of Ralph Travenion of New York!" returns her father easily.
But Erma does not answer this. She has turned away to the window, and is looking down the hill and over the alkaline plains, and her blushes are only seen by a jack-rabbit who peers at her from behind a sage bush.
Then she faces her father and cries: "No matter what comes, you shall do justice to Harry Lawrence! You shall withdraw your claim to his property!"
"Oh ho!" laughs the Mormon. "Give up what I am on the point of winning? Bishop Tranyon of Salt Lake will never do that. That is not his style."
"No," cries the girl; "but my father, Ralph Travenion, of New York, who was once worthy the love of all who knew him, will do justice to a wronged man, because he still loves the daughter who has travelled over two thousand miles to meet him here, and who he says has brought peril upon herself, for love of him!" And looking on him, her eyes grow soft and tender as they used to gaze at him when she was proud of him at party and fête in far-away New York, as she murmurs: "What will Ralph Travenion do for his daughter?"
"For his daughter's sake, Ralph Travenion will do anything!" mutters the old man; then says pathetically, almost brokenly: "For God's sake, give me one kiss of your own will! You have spoken to me an hour, and as yet no daughter's kiss!"
With that the girl comes to him, puts her arms about him, and kisses him, as she used to when she was a child, and before she knew he was a Mormon and a polygamist.