Robber's Roost (1989) (37 page)

"Yes. They would have been more merciful."

"But since I love you--"

"You are mad," he cried.

"And since I want you--presently--to behave somewhat like you did that day."

He reeled under that. The truth was almost overwhelming. The strong, earnest light of her eyes told more than her words. Her pallor had vanished. She was no longer cool.

"Jim, you might have saved me this--this abandon. But perhaps it is just as well. You are laboring under some delusion that I must dispel. . . . I want you--ask you to stay."

"If you are sure--I will stay. Only, for God's sake, don't let it be anything but--but--"

"Love," she added. "Jim, I am sure. If I were going back to England, I would want you to go, just the same. . . . It's what you ARE that has made me love you. There need be no leveling. I lived years down in Robbers' Roost. That changed me--blew the cobwebs out of my brain. This hard, wonderful West and you are alike. I want both."

"But I am nobody. . . . I have nothing," he cried, haltingly.

"You have everything a woman needs to make her happy and keep her safe. The fact that I did not know what these things really were until lately should not be held against me."

"But it might be generosity--pity--the necessity of a woman of your kind to--to pay."

"True. It might be. Only it isn't. . . . I brought you HERE!"

Jim wrapped his arms around her, and for the reason that he was ashamed to betray the tears which blinded his eyes he buried his face in her lap, and mumbled that he would worship her to his dying breath and in the life beyond.

She ran soft ungloved hands through his hair and over his temples.

"People, cities, my humdrum existence, had palled on me. I wanted romance, adventure, love. . . . Jim, I regard myself just as fortunate as you think you are. . . . Lift me off. We'll sit awhile under our pine tree. . . . Jim, hold me as you did that other time--here!"

THE END