"And I tell you, Madalena, this ranch, where I'm working out some kind of expiation and maybe redemption, is God's earth for me. Now do you understand?"
For an instant the woman was silent. Then she broke into loud sobbing, which she did not try to check.
"You are a fool, Don!" she wept. "A fool!"
"Maybe. But I'm not the devil's fool as I used to be. Don't cry. You might be heard. Come. It's time to go. We've said all we have to say to each other except good-bye—if that's not mockery."
Madalena dried her tears, still sobbing under her breath.
"At least take me to the automobile," she said. "Don't send me off alone in the night. I am afraid."
"There's nothing to be afraid of," Knight answered, the flame of his fierceness burnt down. "But I'll go with you, and put you on the way back to El Paso. Come along!"
As he spoke, he started, and Madalena was forced to go with him, forced to keep up with his long strides if she would not be left behind.
When they had gone Annesley lay motionless, as though she were under a spell. The man's words to the other woman wove the spell which bound her, listening as they repeated themselves in her mind. Again and again she heard them, as they had fallen from his lips.
His expiation—perhaps his redemption—here on his bit of "God's earth" ... "It may be true that she treats me like a dog.... But I'd rather be her dog than any other woman's master...." And this was Easter eve, a year to the night since his martyrdom began!