After another silence, Olaf said slowly: “Yes, yes; I can tell by the light that you speak true. What do you intend to do with her?”
“I intend to cure her,” sez the Friar. “I intend to help and strengthen her; and I want you to help her, too. Olaf, she has had a lot of trouble, and her wild gaiety is only a veil to hide the wounds in her heart. I want you to help her.”
“I know, I know she is honest,” said Olaf, and blamed if his voice didn’t sound like a new boy talkin’ to the boss; “but she made me love her. Yes, I do love her. I must marry her. Yes, this is so.”
“She cannot marry you, or any one else, now,” sez the Friar, kindly. “This is why she has gone from one man to another—to disgust them all and make them leave her alone.”
“That is a damn devil of a way,” cried Olaf in anger. “Why should she go to dances, and out ridin’, and so on, if she wants men to leave her alone?”
“She was foolish, she knows that now; but her father is not the right sort of a man, and her home was not pleasant,” said the Friar.
“I told him I kill him, if she marry any one but me,” said Olaf. “I know he is not honest; but he is afraid of me, and he will not bother her now. I go to see him again purty soon, and tell him some more. Won’t you tell me where she is?”
“I want to be your friend, Olaf,” said the Friar gently. “I tell you honest that she cannot marry now. When I see her again, I shall tell her of meetin’ you, and what you have said. I have no desire except to do the best for all of you, and if you love her truly, all you will want will be to do that which is best for her.”
The Friar paused, and I pulled my ear clear to the edge o’ the rock, so as not to miss a word. “Olaf,” he went on in a low, sorrowful voice, “the love of a man for a woman is a wonderful thing, a terrible thing, a soul-testing thing. Don’t let your love become common for men to talk over. In believing what men have told you of me you have insulted her, by admitting that such a thing is possible. Go back to your work, kill no man for what he says of her; but keep her pure in your own heart, and this will be the best way to keep her pure before the world. Silence the gossips by living above them; and if it becomes necessary for you to take your own love by the throat, then do it, and do it for love of her. I shall do all I can to make her worthy of you.”
You should have heard the Friar’s voice when he was sayin’ this. I stood on the little ledge, just breathin’ enough to keep my lungs ventilated, and lookin’ out across the landscape—mountains on all sides of me, and down below the broken ground and the benches, with the green strips along the cricks lookin’ like lazy snakes in the hot sunshine. I couldn’t see a livin’ creature, I felt like the last man on earth; and that deep, musical voice seemed comin’ to me from somewhere out beyond the limits of life. I didn’t have any more fear now: the’ wasn’t anything in the shape of a human who could have done violence to the Friar after hearin’ him say the words I’d just heard; so I put up my gun, and listened again.