She moved, she swept out her hands, and the wonder of her eyes dimmed in a flood of tears.
“My God! You can't care for me?” he cried, hoarsely.
Then she met him, hands outstretched.
“But I do-I do!”
Swift as light Duane caught her and held her to his breast. He stood holding her tight, with the feel of her warm, throbbing breast and the clasp of her arms as flesh and blood realities to fight a terrible fear. He felt her, and for the moment the might of it was stronger than all the demons that possessed him. And he held her as if she had been his soul, his strength on earth, his hope of Heaven, against his lips.
The strife of doubt all passed. He found his sight again. And there rushed over him a tide of emotion unutterably sweet and full, strong like an intoxicating wine, deep as his nature, something glorious and terrible as the blaze of the sun to one long in darkness. He had become an outcast, a wanderer, a gunman, a victim of circumstances; he had lost and suffered worse than death in that loss; he had gone down the endless bloody trail, a killer of men, a fugitive whose mind slowly and inevitably closed to all except the instinct to survive and a black despair; and now, with this woman in his arms, her swelling breast against his, in this moment almost of resurrection, he bent under the storm of passion and joy possible only to him who had endured so much.
“Do you care—a little?” he whispered, unsteadily.
He bent over her, looking deep into the dark wet eyes.
She uttered a low laugh that was half sob, and her arms slipped up to his neck.
“A littler Oh, Duane—Duane—a great deal!”