“I’ve no pride now, Jim, save pride of possession.” Her eyes shone in the moonlight. “Back there in the wilderness I dreamed of this day, but it seemed so far away.”
He nodded his head slowly.
“And yet you ran away?”
“It was on that last occasion that I found 313 myself. When I uttered that appalling, shameful lie, I thought I hated you for your tyranny. It was only when I had spent a night on the trail alone that I saw how mean and low I had fallen....”
“No——”
“Yes. The tyranny was all imaginary—I saw that. I could think of no act on your part that wasn’t kind, or for my good. I came back to find you ill, sick unto death. It seemed it was some punishment on my head.... Oh, everything changed in those few days. If you had died I think I should have died too, though I didn’t love you—then.”
He gave vent to a low hiss of incomparable joy.
“And you do now?” he asked.
Her rapturous eyes were sufficient answer.
“It beats me,” he muttered. “It clean gets me wondering that you can love a chap like me. Once I thought you could, but then I didn’t know you as you are—say, you’re sure about this, ain’t you?”