A sob broke from Joel. He caught John's hand and stared into his eyes. "I now know why Tilly still loves you," he gulped. "She loves you because you are more of God than man. I don't know what to say to you further, but I will say this—and as the Almighty is my witness I mean it. I'll do my duty as the father of my children, as the husband before the law of my wife, and as the manager of your mother's property, but I'll never try to win my wife's heart from you."
John's arm slid around the neck of the bowed and broken man. He started to speak, but his voice clogged with a pain that was delicious. It was as if both he and his companion somehow had stood aside from their bodies and were floating among the trees in the dim starlight.
Presently, and without a word, Joel turned and walked away. He plunged again into the wood as if to avoid contact with any one from the streets of the town. On he went, his face turned homeward. There was a hill to ascend, a vale to cross. He reached the top of the hill. His step had become sluggish. He groaned aloud. He folded his arms and stood staring into the moonlight.
"It is incomplete—unfinished, not rounded out," he muttered. "It cannot remain as it is. I haven't the strength to put it through. I know where I'd fail. I'd continue to suffer, and so would he. He is noble to the core of his being. He is doing his best to help me and her, but he is giving more than he is getting, and that isn't fair. After all, after all, there is one thing that I can do for him that he could not do for me!"
THE END
BOOKS BY
ZANE GREY
| THE U. P. TRAIL |
| THE DESERT OF WHEAT |
| WILDFIRE |
| THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT |
| RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE |
| DESERT GOLD |
| THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS |
| THE LONE STAR RANGER |
| THE RAINBOW TRAIL |
| THE BORDER LEGION |
| KEN WARD IN THE JUNGLE |
| THE YOUNG LION HUNTER |
| THE YOUNG FORESTER |
| THE YOUNG PITCHER |