“Mebbe it wasn’t much in your Mormon thinkin’, for you to play that game. But to ring the child in—that was hellish!”
Jane’s passionate, unheeding zeal began to loom darkly.
“Lassiter, whatever my intention in the beginning, Fay loves you dearly—and I—I’ve grown to—to like you.”
“That’s powerful kind of you, now,” he said. Sarcasm and scorn made his voice that of a stranger. “An’ you sit there an’ look me straight in the eyes! You’re a wonderful strange woman, Jane Withersteen.”
“I’m not ashamed, Lassiter. I told you I’d try to change you.”
“Would you mind tellin’ me just what you tried?”
“I tried to make you see beauty in me and be softened by it. I wanted you to care for me so that I could influence you. It wasn’t easy. At first you were stone-blind. Then I hoped you’d love little Fay, and through that come to feel the horror of making children fatherless.”
“Jane Withersteen, either you’re a fool or noble beyond my understandin’. Mebbe you’re both. I know you’re blind. What you meant is one thing—what you did was to make me love you.”
“Lassiter!”
“I reckon I’m a human bein’, though I never loved any one but my sister, Milly Erne. That was long—”