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Page 9
"Well," resumed Jack argumentatively, "if he won't 'chuck' you, why
don't you 'chuck' HIM?"
She turned quite white, and suddenly dropped her eyes. "Yes," she
said, almost inaudibly, "lots of girls would do that."
"I don't mean go back to your old life," continued Jack. "I reckon
you've had enough of that. But get into some business, you know,
like other women. A bonnet shop, or a candy shop for children,
see? I'll help start you. I've got a couple of hundred, if not in
my own pocket in somebody's else, just burning to be used! And
then you can look about you; and perhaps some square business man
will turn up and you can marry him. You know you can't live this
way, nohow. It's killing you; it ain't fair on you, nor on Rylands
either."
"No," she said quickly, "it ain't fair on HIM. I know it, I know
it isn't, I know it isn't," she repeated, "only"-- She stopped.
"Only what?" said Jack impatiently.
She did not speak. After a pause she picked up the rolling-pin
from the table and began absently rolling it down her lap to her
knee, as if pressing out the stained silk skirt. "Only," she
stammered, slowly rolling the pin handles in her open palms, "I--I
can't leave Josh."
"Why can't you?" said Jack quickly.
"Because--because--I," she went on, with a quivering lip, working
the rolling-pin heavily down her knee as if she were crushing her
answer out of it,--"because--I--love him!"
There was a pause, a dash of rain against the window, and another
dash from her eyes upon her hands, the rolling-pin, and the skirts
she had gathered up hastily, as she cried, "O Jack! Jack! I never
loved anybody like him! I never knew what love was! I never knew
a man like him before! There never WAS one before!"
To this large, comprehensive, and passionate statement Mr. Jack
Hamlin made no reply. An audacity so supreme had conquered his.
He walked to the window, looked out upon the dark, rain-filmed pane
that, however, reflected no equal change in his own dark eyes, and
then returned and walked round the kitchen table. When he was at
her back, without looking at her, he reached out his hand, took her
passive one that lay on the table in his, grasped it heartily for a
single moment, laid it gently down, and returned around the table,
where he again confronted her cheerfully face to face.
"You'll make the riffle yet," he said quietly. "Just now I don't
see what I could do, or where I could chip in your little game; but
if I DO, or you do, count me in and let me know. You know where to
write,--my old address at Sacramento." He walked to the corner,
took up his still wet serape, threw it over his shoulders, and
picked up his broad-brimmed riding-hat.
"You're not going, Jack?" she said hesitatingly, as she rubbed her
wet eyes into a consciousness of his movements. "You'll wait to
see HIM? He'll be here in an hour."
"I've been here too long already," said Jack. "And the less you
say about my calling, even accidentally, the better. Nobody will
believe it,--YOU didn't yourself. In fact, unless you see how I
can help you, the sooner you consider us all dead and buried, the
sooner your luck will change. Tell your girl I've found my own
horse so much better that I have pushed on with him, and give her
that."
He threw a gold coin on the table.
"But your horse is still lame," she said wonderingly. "What will
you do in this storm?"
"Get into the cover of the next wood and camp out. I've done it
before."
"But, Jack!"
He suddenly made a slight gesture of warning. His quick ear had
caught the approach of footsteps along the wet gravel outside. A
mischievous light slid into his dark eyes as he coolly moved
backward to the door and, holding it open, said, in a remarkably
clear and distinct voice:--
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