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
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