“I talked over the matter of water and power rights with Harley P. and he says they will pay a big price for anything like you have. I didn't tell him you owned a power and water-right—just mentioned that I knew a man who owned one. Since then I've been reading up on the subject and I discovered that you have enough water to develop three times the acreage you plan to acquire. One miner's inch to the acre will be sufficient in that country. So you see, Bob, you're a rich man. That explains why Carey was so anxious to find you. He wanted to buy from you cheap and sell to those people dear. Why, you're the queerest kind of a rich man. Bob. You're water poor. Don't you see, now, why you can take my money? You have three times more water than you need; you can sell some of it—”
Bob paused, facing his bride. “And you knew all this a month ago and didn't write me!”
“I was saving it for to-day. I wanted this to be the happiest day of our lives.”
“Ah, how happy you've made me!” he said. His voice trembled just a little and Donna, glancing quickly up at him, detected a suspicious moisture in his eyes.
Until that moment she had never fully realized the intensity of the man's nature—the extent of worry and suffering that could lie behind those smiling eyes and never show! She saw that a great burden had suddenly been lifted from him, and with the necessity for further dissembling removed, his strong face was for the moment glorified. She realized now the torture to which she had subjected him by her own tenderness and repression; while their marriage had been a marvelous—a wonderful—event to her, to him it had been fraught with terror, despite his great love, and her thoughts harked back to the night she and Harley P. Hennage had carried him home to the Hat Ranch. Harley P. had told her that night that Bob would “stand the acid.” How well he could stand it, only she, who had applied it, would ever know.
“Forgive me, dear” she faltered. “If I had only realized—”
“Isn't it great to be married?” he queried. “And to think I was afraid to face it without the price of a honeymoon!”
“You won't have to worry any more. You're rich. You can sell half the water and we will never go back to San Pasqual any more.”
His face clouded. “I can't do that” he said doggedly.
“Why not?” she asked, frightened.