She shook her head. “I did not mean that,” she said. “I mean that I cannot understand how you can be so kind to me. After what I said, and the way I have treated you; it is wonderful!”
I was obliged to wait another moment before I could reply. I clutched the wheel tighter than ever.
“The wonderful part of it all,” I said, earnestly, “is that you should even speak to me, after my treatment of you here, to-night. I was a brute. I ordered you about as if—”
“Hush! Don't! please don't. Think of what I said to you! Will you forgive me? I have been so ungrateful. You saved my life over and over again and I—I—”
“Stop! Don't do that! If you do I shall—Miss Colton, please—”
She choked back the sob. “Tell me,” she said, a moment later, this time looking me directly in the face, “why did you sell my father that land?”
It was my turn to avoid her look. I did not answer.
“I know it was not because of the money—the price, I mean. Father told me that you refused the five thousand he offered and would accept only a part of it; thirty-five hundred, I think he said. I should have known that the price had nothing to do with it, even if he had not told me. But why did you sell it?”
I would have given all I had, or ever expected to have, in this world, to tell her the truth. For the moment I almost hated George Taylor.
“Oh, I thought I might as well, give in then as later,” I answered, with a shrug. “It was no use fighting the inevitable.”