"I have to go back."
"Why?" demanded Gregg.
"It's because of you," interpreted Ronicky Doone. "She knows that, if she leaves you, Mark will start on your trail. Mark is the name of the gent with the sneer, Bill."
"He's got to die, then, Ronicky."
"I been figuring on the same thing for a long time, but he'll die hard,
Bill."
"Don't you see?" asked the girl. "Both of you are strong men and brave, but against John Mark I know that you're helpless. It isn't the first time people have hated him. Hated? Who does anything but hate him? But that doesn't make any difference. He wins, he always wins, and that's why I've come to you."
She turned to Bill Gregg, but such a sad resignation held her eyes that
Ronicky Doone bowed his head.
"I've come to tell you that I love you, that I have always loved you, since I first began writing to you. All of yourself showed through your letters, plain and strong and simple and true. I've come tonight to tell you that I love you, but that we can never marry. Not that I fear him for myself, but for you."
"Listen here," said Bill Gregg, "ain't there police in this town?"
"What could they do? In all of the things which he has done no one has been able to accuse him of a single illegal act—at least no one has ever been able to prove a thing. And yet he lives by crime. Does that give you an idea of the sort of man he is?"