"And now?"
"Now, I care. I never cared before. It was that, I suppose, kept me straight. Don't you care for me—a little, Hal?"
He rose and strode to the window. When he turned from his long look out into the burgeoning spring she was standing silent, expectant. Like stone she stood as he came back, but her arms went up to receive him. Her lips melted into his, and the fire of her face flashed through every vein.
"And afterward?" he said hoarsely.
There was triumph in her answering laughter, passion-shaken though it was.
"Then you'll take me with you."
"But afterward?" he repeated.
Lingeringly she released herself. "Let that take care of itself. I don't care for afterward. We're free, you and I. What's to hinder us from doing as we please? Who's going to be any the worse for it? Oh, I told you I was lawless. It's the Hardscrabbler blood in me, I guess."
Deep in Hal's memory a response to that name stirred.
"Somewhere," he said, "I have run across a Hardscrabbler before."