“Yes, go on,” he said.
“First I want you to read this note,” she continued, drawing a soiled bit of paper from the bosom of her dress. “A photographer called Skidmore was held up by the rustlers and asked to bring it to the Bar T and give it to me.”
Her hand trembled a little as she held the paper out to him. He took it gravely, unfolded and read it.
Then he smiled his old winning smile at her and kissed the hand she had extended.
“Lies! All lies!” he said. “Please think no more about them.” 294
She looked at him steadily and withdrew her hand.
“That won’t do, Bud,” she replied firmly, but in a low voice. “What is the thing for which Caldwell blackmailed you three years ago and again this year?”
Bud looked at her quizzically for a moment, and then seemed to recede into thought. She waited patiently, and, after a while, he began to speak.
“Yes, I suppose you are right,” he said. “It is a woman’s privilege to know what a man’s life holds if she desires it. There are but a few rare souls who can marry men against whom the world holds something, and say: ‘Never tell me what you were or what you have done; what you are and what you will be are enough for me.’
“Putting myself in your place, I am sure I should do what you are doing, for I have always told myself that those who marry with points unsettled between them have taken the first step toward unhappiness. Suspicion and deceit would undermine the greatest love that ever existed. Acts in the past that cannot be explained create suspicion, and those in the present that are better unobserved father deceit.” 295