"I . . . I want to go back!" she whispered. "I am afraid! Please, Mr. Galloway, please let me go home."
Dogs were barking, a man and woman came out. The man laughed. Then he gathered up the bridle-reins and led the horses to the barn. Florrie, shrinking out of Galloway's embrace, looked particularly little and helpless in her pretty riding-habit.
She went with Galloway into the lamplighted room. The woman looked at her curiously, then to Galloway, something of wonder and upstanding admiration in her beady eyes.
"Has the priest come?" demanded Galloway.
"No, señor. Not yet."
She added by way of explanation that word had been sent; that the priest was delayed; a man was dying and he must stay a little at the bedside. She muttered the tale like a child repeating a lesson. Galloway, watching Florence, who sat rigid in her chair by the table, waited for her to finish.
At the end he gave the woman a sharp, significant look. She said something about a cup of coffee for the señorita and went hastily into the kitchen. Florrie sprang to her feet, her hands clasped.
"You must let me go," she cried wildly. "The priest isn't here. I am going home."
"No," said Galloway steadily. "You are not going home, Florence. You must listen to me. I love you more than anything else In the world, my dear. I want you, want you all for mine."
She saw a sudden light flare up in his eyes and it seemed to her that her heart would beat through the walls of her breast. "I am not a boy, but a man. A strong man, a man who, when he wants a thing, wants it with his whole heart and body and soul, a man who takes what he wants. Wait; just listen to me! You love me now; you will love me more and more when I give you all that I have promised you. To-night, in an hour, I will have made the beginning; I will have gathered about me fifty men who will do exactly what I tell them to do! Then they will go with us down into Mexico; they will be the beginning of a little army whose one thought will be loyalty . . . loyalty to you and to me."