"I fully recognized my devil, for the first time, and fought him to a finish. I'm going to have many a tough struggle but you'll never see again nor will any one else, the thing little Felicia was so afraid of. You understand and believe me, don't you?"
Charley nodded, not trusting her quivering lips to words.
Roger dropped her hands and took her face in a tender clasp.
"Charley, it's a poor, broken, futile thing just now, my life, but so help me, God, it will not always be so. And whatever it is or will be, it belongs to you. Will you take it, Charley?"
There was a long pause during which Felicia's old enemy, the alarm clock, ticked loudly. Then Charley smiled and said uncertainly:
"While I'm taking my own share of you, I think I'll take Felicia's too. Then I'll have all of you!"
"Charley! Oh, Charley! My dearest love! My dearest!" Roger jumped up, pulled Charley to her feet and clasping the slender body in his arms laid his lips hungrily to hers. He kissed her eyes, her hair. "Charley! Charley! I'm a selfish brute, but you'll never know what you're doing for me. You ought to have a man worth ten of me but I'm going to have you just the same. Now I can bear even Ernest's failure. Do you really love me, my darling?"
"Curiously enough, I do!" replied Charley with the old whimsical lift of her eyebrows. "Oh, you dear old single-track thinking machine, you!"
Roger held her off and looked at her wonderingly. "You mean—Oh, Charley, I have been a fool in every possible way, haven't I?"
Charley laughed, with her cheek against Roger's, her arm about his neck. Roger held her closer still. "Well," he said huskily, "I'm through with one kind of foolishness! Charley, will you ride into Archer's Springs to-morrow and marry me?"