"I came back to convince myself that it was a lie. I was a fool for coming, I'll admit that; but women have made fools of men ever since the days of Eve."
The two walked on up the road, further away from the toll-house.
"You should not have come back," persisted the girl. "I hoped you never would. I beg you to go away again, this very night. It is best for us both. Some day you will find a true woman who is worthy of your love," she added with a sob rising in her throat, but Milt in his anger and resentment failed to rightly interpret its meaning.
"Then you have been fooling me all the while!" he cried, hot with indignation. "You have made me believe that you cared nothing for him—that you loathed him, even—well, perhaps you did, but you loved his money—you've sold yourself for that."
"No! no! Milt, don't say that!" cried the girl imploringly. "I may have sold myself to him, but not for money—don't think that of me!"
"If not for money—for what?" demanded Derr, sternly. "For what else but his houses and lands?"
Once again the impulse was strong upon her to confess the truth, yet swift to follow the impulse came the unhappy knowledge that to do this would be to seal Milt's fate. If she would save him, she must sacrifice herself. For his sake her lips must remain mute now, and perhaps forever.
"It is a sale, an outright sale!" persisted Derr. "You really don't care for him, you never did. It is only his money you are after—money, not love has won the day, it always will. I might have known as much, but I was simple, and had a simple faith. I didn't understand the falseness of women's hearts."
"Would I have risked my life, as I did, to get you out of the clutches of the raiders that night, if I had cared nothing for you?" asked Sally in sharp earnestness, unable longer to bear his reproaches in silence.
"And to what purpose?" demanded her companion. "Why didn't you let them kill me, as they proposed doing? It would have been kinder to have let them put me out of the way," he added bitterly.