I held out my hand, but she gave me a hug. "I'm not going to pretend to be angry at you, for I can't," she said. "'You do not love me—no? So kiss me good-by, and go!' One minute, Will, may I speak to you as if you really were my brother?"
"I should say you could."
"Well, then, will you promise me that in this place you will do nothing, nor go anywhere with Arth—with any one that would make me ashamed to treat you as I do? Will you keep yourself the same sweet, true-hearted boy I have known, for your mother's sake, and for my sake?"
Her eyes had filled with tears. I'd have promised to sit quietly on a ton of dynamite until it went off—and kept my word at that.
"I promise, Mary," says I.
"Will, boy, I love you," she said, "and I love you because there's nothing silly in that honest red head of yours to misunderstand me. I want to be your dear sister—and to think that you might, too—" She broke off, and the tears overflowed.
Looking at her, a hard suspicion of Saxton jolted me. I didn't know a great deal of the crooked side, but, of course, I had a glimmer, and it struck me that if he had been cutting up bad, when he pretended to care for this girl, he needed killing.
"Tell me, Mary," I asked her, "has Arthur—"
"Hush, Will—I can tell you nothing. You must see with your own eyes. And here's a kiss for your promise—which will be kept! And to-morrow at three you're to be here again."
And off I goes up the road sitting very straight, and I tell you, if it hadn't been for the mean suspicion of Saxton, what with the mouse-colored horse waving his cream mane and tail, my new steeple hat, the sash with a gun and machete in it, the spurs jingling, the memory of having chased a fierce road-agent to a finish, and the kiss of the most beautiful woman in the world on my lips, I'd been a medium well-feeling sort of boy. I guess my anxiety about Saxton didn't quite succeed in drowning the other, neither. You can't expect too much of scant eighteen.