Connor took it and hurled it out of sight along the boulders beyond the gate. The last thing that he saw of the Garden of Eden and its men was that broad grin of Joseph, and then he hurried his horse to overtake Ruth, whose gelding had been plodding steadily along the ravine.
He attempted for the first time to speak to her.
"Only a quitter tries to make up for the harm he's done by apologizing. But I've got to tell you the one thing in my life I most regret. It isn't tricking David of Eden, but it's doing what I've done to you. Will you believe me when I say that I'd give a lot to undo what I've done?"
She only raised her hand to check him and ventured a faint smile of reassurance. It was the smile that hurt Connor to the quick.
They left the ravine. They toiled slowly up the difficult trail, and even when they had reached such an altitude that the floor of the valley of the Garden was unrolling behind them the girl never once moved to look back.
"So," thought Connor, "she'll go through the rest of her life with her head down, watching the ground in front of her. And this is my work."
He was not a sentimentalist, but a lump was forming in his throat when, at the very crest of the mountain, the girl turned suddenly in her saddle and stopped the gray.
"Only makes it worse to stay here," muttered Connor. "Come on, Ruth."
But she seemed not to hear him, and there was something in her smile that kept him from speaking again.