Duane felt the storm rise and break in him. And his terror was that of joy quelling fear. The shining glory of love in this woman"s eyes made him weak as a child. How could she love him--how could she so bravely face a future with him? Yet she held him in her arms, twining her hands round his neck, and pressing close to him. Her faith and love and beauty--these she meant to throw between him and all that terrible past.
They were her power, and she meant to use them all. He dared not think of accepting her sacrifice.
"But Ray--you dear, n.o.ble girl--I"m poor. I have nothing. And I"m a cripple."
"Oh, you"ll be well some day," she replied. "And listen. I have money.
My mother left me well off. All she had was her father"s--Do you understand? We"ll take Uncle Jim and your mother. We"ll go to Louisiana--to my old home. It"s far from here. There"s a plantation to work. There are horses and cattle--a great cypress forest to cut. Oh, you"ll have much to do. You"ll forget there. You"ll learn to love my home. It"s a beautiful old place. There are groves where the gray moss blows all day and the nightingales sing all night."
"My darling!" cried Duane, brokenly. "No, no, no!"
Yet he knew in his heart that he was yielding to her, that he could not resist her a moment longer. What was this madness of love?
"We"ll be happy," she whispered. "Oh, I know. Come!--come!-come!"
Her eyes were closing, heavy-lidded, and she lifted sweet, tremulous, waiting lips.
With bursting heart Duane bent to them. Then he held her, close pressed to him, while with dim eyes he looked out over the line of low hills in the west, down where the sun was setting gold and red, down over the Nueces and the wild brakes of the Rio Grande which he was never to see again.
It was in this solemn and exalted moment that Duane accepted happiness and faced a new life, trusting this brave and tender woman to be stronger than the dark and fateful pa.s.sion that had shadowed his past.
It would come back--that wind of flame, that madness to forget, that driving, relentless instinct for blood. It would come back with those pale, drifting, haunting faces and the accusing fading eyes, but all his life, always between them and him, rendering them powerless, would be the faith and love and beauty of this n.o.ble woman.