“And she will be her own spirited self in a few weeks—when she gets away from here—and gets stronger. She’ll appreciate Dan more after a while, for there are few like him. And so—as she is to go away so soon, I hope something will put them on their former confidential footing. Maybe this murder will be the something.”
“You are a good friend, Mr. Max,” said the woman, slowly, “and you deserve to be a lucky lover. I’m sure I hope so.”
Within the cabin, those two of whom they spoke stood together beside the dead outlaw, and their words were low—so low that the paralyzed man in the next room listened in vain. 305
“And you believed that of me—of me?” he asked, and she answered, falteringly:
“How did I know? You said—you threatened—you would kill him—any man you found in here. So, when he was here dead, I—did not know.”
“And you thought I had stuck that knife in him and left?”
She nodded her head.
“And you thought,” he continued, in a voice slightly tremulous, “that you were giving me a chance to escape just so long as you let them suspect—you?”
She did not answer, but turned toward the door. He held his arm out and barred her way.
“Only a moment!” he said, pleadingly. “It never can be that—that I would be anything to you, little girl—never, never! But—just once—let me tell you a truth that shall never hurt you, I swear! I love you! No other word but that will tell your dearness to me. I—I never would have said it, but—but what you risked for me has broken me down. It has told me more than your words would tell me, and I—Oh, God! my God!”