“I think,” he said coldly, “that you will consent. I am not in a trifling mood. Just now it pleases me to imagine that I am an instrument of Fate. Maybe that sounds mysterious to you, but some day you will be able to see just how logical it all seems to me now, that Fate has sent me a pawn—a subject, if you please—to sacrifice, that the game which I have been playing may be carried to its conclusion.”
Outside they heard the dog bark, heard the parson speak to it.
“The parson is coming,” said Sheila, her joy over the impending interruption showing in her eyes.
“Yes, he is coming.” Still with his back to the door, Dakota deliberately drew out one of his heavy pistols and examined it minutely, paying no attention to Sheila. Her eyes widened with fear as the hand holding the weapon dropped to his side and he looked at her again.
“What are you doing to do?” she demanded, watching these forbidding preparations with dilated eyes.
“That depends,” he returned with a chilling laugh. “Have you ever seen a man die? No?” he continued as she shuddered. “Well, if you don’t consent to marry me you will see the parson die. I have decided to give you the choice, ma’am,” he went on in a quiet, determined voice, entirely free from emotion. “Sacrifice yourself and the parson lives; refuse and I shoot the parson down the instant he steps inside the door.”
“Oh!” she cried in horror, taking a step toward him and looking into his eyes for evidence of insincerity—for the slightest sign that would tell her that he was merely trying to scare her. “Oh! you—you coward!” she cried, for she saw nothing in his eyes but cold resolution.
He smiled with straight lips. “You see,” he mocked, “how odd it is? Fate is shuffling us three in this game. You have your choice. Do you care to be responsible for the death of a fellow being?”
For a tense instant she looked at him, and seeing the hard, inexorable glitter in his eyes she cringed away from him and sank to the edge of the bunk, covering her face with her hands.
During the silence that followed she could hear the parson outside—his voice, and the yelping of the dog—evidently they had formed a friendship. The sounds came nearer; Sheila heard the parson try the door. She became aware that Dakota was standing over her and she looked up, shivering, to see his face, still hard and unyielding.