"What do you really mean then, Molly--you say, that's why?"
"That's why I'm going to marry you, Sam. Nine days from to-day, at the Independence Rock, if we are alive. And from now till then, and always, I'm going to be honest, and I'm going to pray God to give you power to make me forget every other man in all the world except my--my--" But she could not say the word "husband."
"Your husband!"
[pg 219]
He said it for her, and perhaps then reached his zenith in approximately unselfish devotion, and in good resolves at least.
The sun shone blinding hot. The white dust rose in clouds. The plague of flies increased. The rattle and creak of wheel, the monotone of the drivers, the cough of dust-afflicted kine made the only sounds for a long time.
"You can't kiss me, Molly?"
He spoke not in dominance but in diffidence. The girl awed him.
"No, not till after, Sam; and I think I'd rather be left alone from now till then. After--Oh, be good to me, Sam! I'm trying to be honest as a woman can. If I were not that I'd not be worth marrying at all."