Thorne spread out his hands as if in desperation.
"It is because it is so precious that I shrink from involving you in the disaster that is hanging over me. I am a ruined, discredited man, and in a few more weeks I will be driven out of my homestead without a dollar. It will be three or four years at least before I can struggle to my feet again."
"Is that so very dreadful, Mavy?" Alison smiled. "I almost think that in the things that count the most many of you are, after all, more bound by traditions than we are. Your wildest flight was the driving about the prairie with a load of patent medicines, and now your imagination is bounded by a homestead and household comforts. You could teach a woman to love you, and then go away, driven by some fantastic point of honor, because you could not realize that her views might be wider than yours."
"I could hardly suppose that you would care to live in a wagon."
"I did it once—and it was not so very dreadful. I really think, if it were needful, I could do it again."
She leaned forward toward him.
"It would be very much worse, Mavy, if you went away and left me behind."
At length he came toward her and seized both her hands.
"Dear," he cried, "I have tried to do what I felt I ought—and now I'm not sorry that I find I'm not strong enough. I can't tell you how I want you—but I'm afraid you could not face what you would have to bear with me."
"Try!" said Alison simply.