“It would indeed, uncle,” replied Duane, and the old, haunting, somber mood returned.
But Duane was not often at the mercy of childish old hero-worshiping Uncle Jim. Miss Longstreth was the only person who seemed to divine Duane's gloomy mood, and when she was with him she warded off all suggestion.
One afternoon, while she was there at the west window, a message came for him. They read it together.
You have saved the ranger service to the Lone Star State
Ray knelt beside him at the window, and he believed she meant to speak then of the thing they had shunned. Her face was still white, but sweeter now, warm with rich life beneath the marble; and her dark eyes were still intent, still haunted by shadows, but no longer tragic.
“I'm glad for MacNelly's sake as well as the state's,” said Duane.
She made no reply to that and seemed to be thinking deeply. Duane shrank a little.
“The pain--Is it any worse to-day?” she asked, instantly.
“No; it's the same. It will always be the same. I'm full of lead, you know. But I don't mind a little pain.”
“Then--it's the old mood--the fear?” she whispered. “Tell me.”
“Yes. It haunts me. I'll be well soon--able to go out. Then that--that hell will come back!”
“Some drunken cowboy, some fool with a gun, will hunt me out in every town, wherever I go,” he went on, miserably. “Buck Duane! To kill Buck Duane!”
“Hush! Don't speak so. Listen. You remember that day in Val Verde, when I came to you--plead with you not to meet Poggin? Oh, that was a terrible hour for me. But it showed me the truth. I saw the struggle between your passion to kill and your love for me. I could have saved you then had I known what I know now. Now I understand that--that thing which haunts you. But you'll never have to draw again. You'll never have to kill another man, thank God!”
Like a drowning man he would have grasped at straws, but he could not voice his passionate query.
She put tender arms round his neck. “Because you'll have me with you always,” she replied. “Because always I shall be between you and that--that terrible thing.”
It seemed with the spoken thought absolute assurance of her power came to her. Duane realized instantly that he was in the arms of a stronger woman that she who had plead with him that fatal day.