The Plow-Woman Part 50

"I love you," he repeated.

She was too just to forget her own lack of strength. Her eyes clouded with sadness, and brimmed. "I hate myself for coming," she said fiercely.

"We love each other. That isn't a crime," he declared.

"For you, it isn't. But it is for me. Because--it'll hurt Marylyn. Oh, you don't understand--I can't take her happiness. I can't! I can't!"

"It's not your fault that I love you, Dallas."

"What happens next _is_."

He shook his head--smiling.

She raised her chin, as if striving to master herself. "I knew all day that I'd come," she said steadily. "I'd 'a' come if I--died for it!"

"Ah, my dearest!" He put his hands upon her shoulders, drawing her near again.

She stepped back determinedly. "Let me tell you," she begged. "Please, I knew I'd come. So I made up my mind I'd do what was white--ask you to visit Marylyn, and talk to her. If you would, if you _only_ would, why, at last, you couldn't help liking her!"

Again he smiled at her, shaking his head. "I love _you_, not Marylyn."

"You're a good man," she said. "You wouldn't like to see me do anything that wasn't right square. You wouldn't--think much of me if I did. I'll do wrong if--if I take you from her."

"I wouldn't have you do anything wrong," he declared stoutly. "You never could. But, dear, Marylyn is a child yet. She's too young to know her own mind. And we're taking her more seriously than she takes herself."

"You don't know how sick and down in the mouth she's been. Just before father--went, she got a little better. After that, for a while, she was bad again. But I could see it wasn't all about father. There's something else. She's changed so--never talks much, just sits and looks and looks----" She turned away.

"I'm--I'm all she's got," she went on. "All her life I've tended her, just as if I was her mother. I fed her and dressed her. When she hurt herself, she came to me. Now, she's hurt worse than she's ever been, and she's come to me about it. I'm bound to help her."

"I happened to be the first man she got to know this side of Texas.

She'd forget me in a week if she met someone else. If she don't meet someone else, I'm afraid she'll have to be hurt."

Dallas straightened proudly. "I'll never hurt her," she said.

"Nor I, if I can help it. She needn't know about us, just yet."

"I won't lie to her, either."

"Not lie, dear. But you won't refuse to come out here----"

"I do! I do! I'll never come again."

"Ah, Dallas, why should we deny ourselves that much? Why keep apart?

I've lost the last dear one I had. You've lost your father, you're alone with your little sister. Come to me."

"You'd take me away?" she asked. "You'd have me give up the claim? To forget what happened?"

"G.o.d help me--no! I ask you to share your life with me, your work, your revenge, everything."

"Not yet----"

"I can't bear to see you and Marylyn staying here alone. And I can't stay near enough to protect you as I ought. Matthews is sly. If I meet him, I'll kill him, as I would a wolf. Then, he'll be out of the way.

But--suppose he gets ahead of me? does you harm? Your staying here seems all the more terrible to me since I've been East. The idea of your having just Charley to guard, of your plowing and planting and cutting hay----"

She laughed. "Outside work is fine," she said. "Better than cooking over a hot stove or breaking your back over a tub. Men have the best half of things--the air and the sky and the horses. I don't complain. I like my work. Let it make me like a man."

"It couldn't. I don't mean that. You're the womanliest woman I've ever known."

"I don't want you to ever think different."

"Never will. And I don't ask you to chain yourself up in a house.

There's a big future in the cow business. We'd take my share of the Clark herd--you'd ride with me--we'd be partners."

"Wait--wait." Temptation was dragging sorely at her heart. She glanced homeward. Behind her, the tall gra.s.s was running with the wind. She longed to run with it. Yet----

"I'll wait and wait," he said; "long as you ask, if it's years."

She retreated a few steps. "I must go now. Don't think I don't know what you've done for us--the sutler, and all that. I'll remember it. But I got to go--good-by."

"Good-night, not good-by," he answered. "Can't I come this far and help you to-morrow with the hay?"

"No, no."

"Let me send a couple of men, then."

"I'll do it alone. I'd rather. It's all in but this little bit."

"But please go slow. Don't wear yourself out, Dallas."

"If my work was all!" she said sorrowfully.

"If you would come here, now and then, to me, dear----"

"I'll never come again. This once, I couldn't help it. Oh, I tried and tried! But next time I can. I'll think of Marylyn. Why, I'd give my life to make her happy!"

"But your love--that goes where it pleases."

"You won't come to see her?"

"It wouldn't help. But I'll be here every night."

She retreated again. He did not attempt to follow.

"Good-night," she said.

"Good-night, good-night."

The moon was drifting up the eastern sky, and, as she went, her shadow pursued her. He watched until it blended with the shadow of the shack.