“That’s as far as it went with me then, but before we reached here next day I knew the thing cut deeper with me. I ain’t saying that I love you, because I’m a sweep and it’s just likely I don’t know passion from love. But I’ll tell you this—there hasn’t been a waking moment since then I haven’t been on fire to be with you. That’s why I stayed away until I knew I wasn’t so likely to slop over. But here, I’m doing it right this minute. I care more for you than I do for anything else on this earth. But that makes it worse for you. I never cared for anybody without bringing ruin on them. I broke my mother’s heart and spoiled the life of a girl I was going to marry. That’s the kind of scoundrel I am. Even if I can make you care for me—and I reckon I can if y’u are like other women—I’ll likely drag you through hell after me.”
The simulation of despair in his beautiful eyes spoke more impressively than his self-scorning words. She was touched in spite of herself, despite, too, his colossal egotism. For there is an appeal about the engaging sinner that drums in a woman’s head and calls to her heart. All good women are missionaries in the last analysis, and Miss Messiter was not an exception to her sex. Even though she knew he was half a fraud and that his emotion was theatric, she could not let the moment pass.
She leaned forward, a sweet, shy dignity in her manner. “Is it too late to change? Why not begin now? There is still a to-morrcw, and it need not be the slave of yesterday. Life for all of us is full of milestones.”
“And how shall I begin my new career of saintliness?” he asked, with a swift return to blithe irony.
“The nearest duty. Take me back to my ranch. Begin a life of rigid honesty.”
“Give you up now that I have found you? That is just the last thing I would do,” he cried, with glancing eyes. “No—no. The clock can’t be turned back. I have sowed and I must reap.”
He leaped to his feet. “Come! We must be going.”
She rose sadly, for she knew the mood of sentimental regret for his wasted life had passed, and she had failed.
They descended the trough and reached the boulder field that had marked the terminal of the glacier. At the farther edge of it the outlaw turned to point out to the girl a great bank of snow on a mountainside fifteen miles away.
He changed his weight as he turned, when a rock slipped under his foot and he came down hard. He was up again in an instant, but Helen Messiter caught the sharp intake of his breath when he set foot to the ground.