"You've been wanting to convert me," she said. "You want me to sign the pledge, and to stop going to dances and playing cards, and to bring up Christa that way."
All the thoughts that he had had since his reform of what he could do for this girl and her sister if she would only let him came before his heart now, lit through and through with the light of his love that at that moment renewed its strength with a power which appalled him.
She took a few steps nearer to him.
"Father didn't mean to do any harm," she whispered hastily; "he's got no more sin on his soul than a child that gets angry and fights for what it wants. He's just like a child, father is; but it's been a lesson to him, and he'll never do it again. Think of the shame to Christa and me if he was hanged. And I've striven so to keep us respectable—Bart, you know I have. There's no shame in the world like your father being——" (there was a nervous gasp in her throat before she could go on)—"and he'd be awfully frightened. Oh, you don't know how frightened he'd be! If I thought they were going to do that to him, it would just kill me. I'll do anything; I wouldn't mind so much if they'd take me and hang me instead—it wouldn't scare me so much: but father would be just like a child, crying and crying and crying, if they kept him in jail and were going to do that in the end. And then no one would expect Christa and me to have any more fun, and we never would have any. There's a way that you can get father off, Bart, and give him at least one more chance to run for his life. If you'll do it, I'll do whatever you want,—I'll sign the pledge; I'll go to church; I'll teach Christa that way. She and I won't dance any more. You can count on me. You can trust me. You know that when I say a thing I'll do it."
He realised now what had happened to him—a thing that of all things he had learned to dread most,—a desperate temptation. He answered, and his tone and manner gave her no glimpse of the shock of opposing forces that had taken place within a heart that for many months had been dwelling in the calm of victory.
"I cannot do it, Ann."
"Bart Toyner," she said, "I'm all alone in this world; there's not a soul to help me. Every one's against me and against him. Don't turn against me; I need your help—oh, I need it! I never professed to care about you; but if your father was in danger of dying an awful death and you came to me for help, I wouldn't refuse you, you know I wouldn't."
He only spoke now with the wish to conceal from her the panic within; for with the overwhelming desire to yield to her had come a ghastly fear that he was going to yield, and faith and hope fled from him. He saw himself standing there face to face with his idea of God, and this temptation between him and God. The temptation grew in magnitude, and God withdrew His face.
"I know, Ann, it sounds hard about your father" (mechanically); "but you must try and think how it would be if he was lying wounded like Walker and some other man had done it. Wouldn't you think the law was in the right then?"
"No!" (quickly). "If father'd got a simple wound, and could be nursed and taken care of comfortably until he died, I wouldn't want any man to be hanged for it. It's an awful, awful thing to be hanged."