He let go her wrist, and she tapped her horse to a faster pace. She was thinking intently, trying to frame in her mind the best words in which to make her confession. Suddenly, over the top of a steep incline, they came upon a wide and splendid view. The sides of the canyon seemed to melt and flow back, giving far-ranging sight of the sombre purple mountains towering toward heaven and of the hills dwindling down into the plain.
“Lucy,” he exclaimed, “here is the beautiful place of which I told you. I wanted to bring you here to tell you of my love, because this is the most beautiful spot I know. Lucy, darling, I love you with all my heart, and if you cannot deny that you love me, then it is my right, the right of my love, to hear you say that you do. Never mind about not leaving your father and meaning never to marry. We’ll talk about that afterward. Won’t you tell me now that you do love me?”
Her eyes dropped from the high and wide horizon to her horse’s mane. She tried to say, “I do not love you,” but her heart rose in rebellion and forbade the untruth. She opened her lips, but no sound came from them. Curtis bent toward her, trying to take her hand, but she drew it away. With all her strength she was contending for her determination against both him and the traitor within her own heart. He leaned nearer, pleading in tones that were half loving command and half loving entreaty, “Lucy! Lucy, love! Look up! Let me see your eyes, your dear, beautiful eyes!”
Lucy clasped her hands together hard and bowed her head. He was bending over her, his shoulder touching hers. She heard his voice, soft and rich with love, whispering, “Lucy, darling!” And suddenly, scarcely knowing what she did, she lifted her head and looked into his eyes. Instantly his arms were about her, and he heard her murmuring, “I do love you! Oh, I do love you!” He bent his ardent face to hers, but before their lips met she started away, freeing herself from his encircling arms.
“Stop!” she cried, putting out a forbidding hand, as she moved her horse away. “You have made me tell you, against my will, that I love you. Now you must listen while I tell you who I am.” There was a suggestion of defiance in the poise of her head and in the flashing of her eyes as they looked squarely into his.
“And you must understand,” she went on, “that after I tell you this I want you to forget everything that has passed between us this afternoon, just as I shall do. For I am the daughter of Sumner L. Delafield!”
In an instant his arms were about her again. “Lucy, dearest, you’ve told me no news! I’ve known it since yesterday.”
She struggled to free herself. “But my father—you hate him—you—you wish to kill him—I heard what you said to him that day at your ranch, last Spring—and afterward I happened to find out who he is.”
A wave of crimson deepened the color of his sunbrowned face. “All that is dead and buried,” he said, “and I am ashamed of it, now. I want you to help me forget that I allowed such base thoughts to master me so long. I’m going to your father this afternoon to tell him that I have forgiven the old debt, and everything else, and to ask him to forgive me. My poor little girl! I never dreamed your dear heart was being worried by that affair!”