The man continued to smoke on for some silent moments. Then, as the girl, too, remained silent, he glanced at her out of the corners of his eyes.
"You gave up a good deal for me—for this," he said in gentle protest. "But you did it with your eyes open—I mean, to the true facts of my position. Say, Effie, I didn't hold you up for this thing. I laid every card on the table. My father threatened us both, to our faces, if we persisted in marrying. Well, I guess we persisted, and he—why, he just handed us what he promised—the dollars that bought us this—farm. That was all. It was the last cent he figured to pass our way. You know all that, and you never squealed—then. You knew what was in store. I mean—this." He flung out one arm in a comprehensive gesture. "You guessed you'd grit enough to face it—with me. We hoped to win out." Then he smiled. "Say, I guess I haven't given up a thing—for you, eh? I haven't quit the home of millionaire father where my year's pocket money was more than the income of seventy per cent. of other folks! I, too, did it for this—and you. Won't you stick it for me?"
The man's appeal was spoken in low earnest tones His eyes were gentle. But the girl kept hers studiously turned from his direction, and it was impossible for him to read that which lay behind them.
Again some silent moments passed. The girl was gently rocking herself. At last, however, she drew in her feet in a nervous, purposeful movement, and sat forward.
"Bob," she exclaimed, and now there were earnestness and kindness in the eyes that gazed up at the man, "it's no use for us to talk this way," she cried. "I began it, and I ought to be sorry—real sorry. But I'm not. I wouldn't have acted that way under ordinary circumstances. But it's different now, and it was your own talk made me. You sneered at that ten thousand dollars, which seems to be a fortune to me. Ten thousand dollars!" she breathed. "And we haven't ten dollars between us in this—house. Bob, it makes me mad when I think of it. You don't care. You don't worry. All yon care for is to get away from it all—from me—and spend your time among the boys in Orrville. You've been away ever since dinner to-day, and now it's past midnight. Why? Why, when there's a hundred and one things to do around this wretched shanty? No—you undertake this thing, and then—spend every moment you can steal—yes, that's the word—steal, hanging around Ju Penrose's saloon. I'm left to fix things right here—to do the work which you have undertaken. Then you sneer when I see a fortune in that ten thousand dollars reward."
The girl's swift heat was not without effect. She had not intended to accuse in so straight a fashion. It was the result of long pent-up bitterness, which never needs more than a careless word to hurl into active expression. Bob's mild expression of contempt looked to be about to cost him dear.
A moody look not untouched with some sort of fear had crept into the man's eyes. Now he tried to smooth the threat of storm he saw looming. Furthermore, an uncomfortable feeling of his own guilt was possessing him.
"But what if it can be called a fortune, Effie?" he demanded swiftly.
"It don't concern us. I don't guess it's liable to come our way."
"Why not?"
The girl's challenge came short and sharp, and her beautiful eyes were turned upon him full of cold regard.