“Perhaps,” she said, eagerly, “perhaps you could not avoid it–perhaps you were forced to do it.”
“No.”
“Oh!” she cried. “You did not–you did not shoot him down without warning! I know you didn’t!”
“No, not that,” he said slowly. “And, besides, this was his third offense. Twice I have given him his life, and I would have done so again but for what I discovered after I faced him.” He paused for a moment and then continued, with more feeling in his voice, a ring of victory and an irrepressible elation. “I found that he was the man for whom I have been looking for fifteen years, and whom I had sworn to kill. He killed my father, killed him like a dog and without a chance for life, hung him to a tree on his own land. And when I learned that, when he had confessed to me, I forgot the new game, I forgot everything but the watch in my hand slowly ticking away his life, the time I had given him to make his peace with God–and I hated the slow seconds, I begrudged him every movement of the hands. Then I shot him, and I was glad, so glad–but oh, dear! If you–if you––”
His voice wavered and broke and he dropped to his knees before her with bowed head as she came slowly toward him and seized the hem of her gown in both hands, kissing it passionately, burying his face in its folds like a tired boy at his mother’s knee.
Her eyes were filled with tears and they rimmed her lashes as she looked down on the man at her feet. Bending, she touched him and then placed her hands on his head, tenderly kissing the tangled hair in loving forgiveness.
“Dear, dear boy,” she murmured softly. “Don’t, dear heart. Don’t, you must not–oh, you must not! Please–come with me; get up, dear, and sit with me over here in the corner; then you shall tell me all about it. I am sure you have not done wrong–and if you have–don’t you know I love you, boy? Don’t you know I love you?”
He stirred slightly, as if awakening from a troubled sleep, and slowly raised his head and looked at her with doubt in his eyes, for it was so much like a dream–perhaps it was one. But he saw a light on her face, a light which a man sees only on the face of one woman and which blinds him against all other lights forever. Then it was true, all true–he had heard aright! “Helen!” he cried, “Helen!” and the ring in his voice brought new tears to her eyes. He sprang to his feet, tense, eager, all his nerves tingling, and his quirt hissed through the air and snapped a defiance, a warning to the world as he clasped her to him. “I knew, I knew!” he cried passionately. “In my heart I knew you were a thoroughbred!”
He tilted her head back, but she laughed low with delight and eluded him, leading him to a chair, the chair he had occupied on the occasion of his first visit, and then drew a low, rough footrest beside him and seated herself at his feet, her elbows resting on his knees and her chin in her hands. He looked down into the upturned face and then glanced swiftly about the homelike room and back to her face again. She snuggled tightly against his knees and waited patiently for his story.
He sighed contentedly and touched her cheek reverently and then told her all of the story of Tex Williard, from the very beginning to the very end, from the time he had seen Tex bending over one of his father’s cows to the last scene in the thicket. When he had finished, Helen took his head between her hands, pressing it warmly as she nodded wisely to show that she understood. He looked deep into her eyes and then suddenly bent his head until his lips touched her ear: “Helen, darling,” he whispered, “how long must I wait?”