and subtle shifting of my mind to harsher thought.
“Jack Blome!” I broke in upon their adulations. “Rustler and gunman. Did you see the notches on his gun? Every notch for a man he's killed! For weeks reports have come to Linrock that soon as he could get round to it he'd ride down and rid the community of that bothersome fellow, that Texas Ranger! He's come to kill Vaughn Steele!”
Chapter 7. DIANE AND VAUGHN
Then as gloom descended on me with my uttered thought, my heart smote me at Sally's broken: “Oh, Russ! No! No!” Diane Sampson bent dark, shocked eyes upon the hill and ranch in front of her; but they were sightless, they looked into space and eternity, and in them I read the truth suddenly and cruelly revealed to her—she loved Steele!
I found it impossible to leave Miss Sampson with the impression I had given. My own mood fitted a kind of ruthless pleasure in seeing her suffer through love as I had intimation I was to suffer.
But now, when my strange desire that she should love Steele had its fulfilment, and my fiendish subtleties to that end had been crowned with success, I was confounded in pity and the enormity of my crime. For it had been a crime to make, or help to make, this noble and beautiful woman love a Ranger, the enemy of her father, and surely the author of her coming misery. I felt shocked at my work. I tried to hang an excuse on my old motive that through her love we might all be saved. When it was too late, however, I found that this motive was wrong and perhaps without warrant.
We rode home in silence. Miss Sampson, contrary to her usual custom of riding to the corrals or the porch, dismounted at a path leading in among the trees and flowers. “I want to rest, to think before I go in,” she said.
Sally accompanied me to the corrals. As our horses stopped at the gate I turned to find confirmation of my fears in Sally's wet eyes.
“Russ,” she said, “it's worse than we thought.”
“Worse? I should say so,” I replied.
“It'll about kill her. She never cared that way for any man. When the Sampson women love, they love.”
“Well, you're lucky to be a Langdon,” I retorted bitterly.
“I'm Sampson enough to be unhappy,” she flashed back at me, “and I'm Langdon enough to have some sense. You haven't any sense or kindness, either. Why'd you want to blurt out that Jack Blome was here to kill Steele?”
“I'm ashamed, Sally,” I returned, with hanging head. “I've been a brute. I've wanted her to love Steele. I thought I had a reason, but now it seems silly. Just now I wanted to see how much she did care.
“Sally, the other day you said misery loved company. That's the trouble. I'm sore—bitter. I'm like a sick coyote that snaps at everything. I've wanted you to go into the very depths of despair. But I couldn't send you. So I took out my spite on poor Miss Sampson. It was a damn unmanly thing for me to do.”
“Oh, it's not so bad as all that. But you might have been less abrupt. Russ, you seem to take an—an awful tragic view of your—your own case.”
“Tragic? Hah!” I cried like the villain in the play. “What other way could I look at it? I tell you I love you so I can't sleep or do anything.”
“That's not tragic. When you've no chance,
Sally, as swiftly as she had blushed, could change into that deadly sweet mood. She did both now. She seemed warm, softened, agitated. How could this be anything but sincere? I felt myself slipping; so I laughed harshly.
“Chance! I've no chance on earth.”
“Try!” she whispered.
But I caught myself in time. Then the shock of bitter renunciation made it easy for me to simulate anger.
“You promised not to—not to—” I began, choking. My voice was hoarse and it broke, matters surely far removed from pretense.
I had seen Sally Langdon in varying degrees of emotion, but never as she appeared now. She was pale and she trembled a little. If it was not fright, then I could not tell what it was. But there were contrition and earnestness about her, too.
“Russ, I know. I promised not to—to tease—to tempt you anymore,” she faltered. “I've broken it. I'm ashamed. I haven't played the game square. But I couldn't—I can't help myself. I've got sense enough not to engage myself to you, but I can't keep from loving you. I can't let you alone. There—if you want it on the square! What's more, I'll go on as I have done unless you keep away from me. I don't care what I deserve—what you do—I will—I will!”
She had begun falteringly and she ended passionately.
Somehow I kept my head, even though my heart pounded like a hammer and the blood drummed in my ears. It was the thought of Steele that saved me. But I felt cold at the narrow margin. I had reached a point, I feared, where a kiss, one touch from this bewildering creature of fire and change and sweetness would make me put her before Steele and my duty.
“Sally, if you dare break your promise again, you'll wish you never had been born,” I said with all the fierceness at my command.
“I wish that now. And you can't bluff me, Mr. Gambler. I may have no hand to play, but you can't make me lay it down,” she replied.
Something told me Sally Langdon was finding herself; that presently I could not frighten her, and then—then I would be doomed.
