"You shall have it."
"I don't want to be wicked," she said, looking up at him, "but I beg of you not to sign that petition to the Court, until—"
"Until when?"
"Until Zeb Sawyer is—is—out of the way. People flatter me and praise me, but they don't know what I have suffered. And my father doesn't understand me. When you called Sawyer a coward I wanted to shout in the street."
"Still you consented to marry him."
"Yes, to live for a little longer in peace. But I know a tall rock over on the creek, and from the top of it is a long way to the cruel boulders below. They call it 'Lover's Leap,' and I have thought after awhile the name might be changed to 'Despair's Leap.' At night I have dreamed of that rock, and sometimes my dream would continue after I opened my eyes. Our engagement was for one year, and often I said to myself that I had but one year longer to live. At church I would pray, and I could hear the words, 'Children, obey your parents.' And then I would go home and pretend to be happy in that obedience."
"But you signed the petition."
"Yes, with a prayer that you would not sign it."
"And I won't."
"Not even if they should come with pistols?"