door.
Outside, Mary was waiting, anxious enquiry in her eyes. `He's lookin' better'n I expected,' Sudden promptly lied. `A mite depressed, mebbe. I guess it's on'y heart trouble.'
`Only?' she gasped in alarm, and then the dawning smile made his meaning clear. `Jim, you're a--dear,' she cried, and hurriedly retreated.
She found her patient lying back, eyes closed, face pale as the pillow on which it rested. He seemed dreadfully still, and her heart missed a beat. Had the visit been too much for him? Oppressed by the fear, she sank on her knees by the bedside, and spoke his name. Slowly the heavy lids lifted.
`Must 'a' dozed,' he muttered. Why, what's wrong.'
`Nothing--now,' she replied, as the colour drained back into her cheeks. `I was alarmed. I thought....' A shudder shook her.
`Would it 'a' mattered all that much?' he asked.
The barriers for her were down now. `I think--I would have died too,' she said huskily.
For long breathless seconds he lay silent, trying to realise the joy that was coming to him. Then, `If I tell you life can't give me a sweeter moment than this, Mary, you won't--laugh at me?'
Her head drooped. `So you knew?' she said shamedly.
`I suspicioned,' he smiled. `My dear, you were wastin' yore time; I reckon I loved you--unknowin'--right from the start. When I found out what you meant to me, I was scared to show it, in case. I couldn't blame you, after--'
A small hand closed his lips, and a passionate voice said, `You should have used your quirt; it might have brought a vindictive little fool to her senses. Oh, I hate myself when I remember. You were kind to me, and in return I've...'
`Saved my life--yeah, I've the doc's word for that--an' given me the greatest happiness I have ever known,' he finished tenderly. The past is done, the future to face, together, just the two of us.'
A rosy face burrowed into the hollow of his shoulder. He drew her closer and pressed his lips to the golden curls, as he whispered: `Girl, girl, but I'll be mighty good to you.'
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About Sudden
James Green aka Sudden is a fictional character created by the author Oliver Strange and after his death carried on by Frederick H. Christian. The books are centred around a gunfighter in the American Wild West era, who is in search of two men who cheated his foster father. Jim the young man promises his dying father that he will find the two and take revenge. He gives the name James Green to himself and in time gets accused of a robbery himself and becomes an outlaw.
The books were first published around the late 1920s and the early 1930s. They featured vivid descriptions of the western American landscape, rare in an author at that time. These book have been out of print for a very long time, and are currently available for purchase only in paper format, after being owned by one of more people.
Oliver Strange wrote 10 Sudden books (in order of storyline, below)
Sudden--Outlawed (1935)
Sudden (1933)
Sudden--Gold Seeker (1937)
Sudden Rides Again (1938)
Sudden Makes War (1942)
Sudden Takes the Trail (1940)
Sudden Plays a Hand (1950)
The Marshal of Lawless (1933)
The Range Robbers (1930)
The Law o' the Lariat (1931)
