The lights, but one, were out. McCloud and Whispering Smith had gone, and Marion was locking up the house for the night, when she was halted by a knock at the shop door. It was a summons that she thought she knew, but the last in the world that she wanted to hear or to answer. Dicksie had gone to the bedroom, and standing between the portiÈres that curtained the work-room from the shop, Marion in the half-light listened, hesitating whether to ignore or to answer the midnight intruder. But experience, and bitter experience, had taught her there was only one way to meet that particular summons, and that was to act, whether at noon or at midnight, without fear. She waited until the knocking had been twice repeated, turned up the light, and going to the door drew the bolt; Sinclair stood before her, and she drew back for him to enter. “Dicksie Dunning is with me to-night,” said Marion, with her hand on the latch, “and we shall have to talk here.”

Sinclair took off his hat. “I knew you had company,” 328 he returned in the low, gentle tone that Marion knew very well, “so I came late. And I heard to-night, for the first time, that this railroad crowd is after me––God knows why; but they have to earn their salary somehow. I want to keep out of trouble if I can. I won’t kill anybody if they don’t force me to it. They’ve scared nearly all my men away from the ranch already; one crippled-up cowboy is all I have got to help me look after the cattle. But I won’t quarrel with them, Marion, if I can get away from here peaceably, so I’ve come to talk it over once more with you. I’m going away and I want you to go with me; I’ve got enough to keep us as well as the best of them and as long as we live. You’ve given me a good lesson. I needed it, girlie–––”

“Don’t call me that!”

He laughed kindly. “Why, that’s what it used to be; that’s what I want it to be again. I don’t blame you. You’re worth all the women I ever knew, Marion. I’ve learned to appreciate some few things in the lonely months I’ve spent up on the Frenchman; but I’ve felt while I was there as if I were working for both of us. I’ve got a buyer in sight now for the cattle and the land. I’m ready to clean up and say good-by to trouble––all I want is for you to give me the one chance I’ve asked for and go along.”

They stood facing each other under the dim light. She listened intently to every word, though in her terror she might not have heard or understood all of them. One thing she did very clearly understand, and that was why he had come and what he wanted. To that she held her mind tenaciously, and for that she shaped her answer. “I cannot go with you––now or ever.”

He waited a moment. “We always got along, Marion, when I behaved myself.”

“I hope you always will behave yourself; but I could no more go with you than I could make myself again what I was years ago, Murray. I wish you nothing but good; but our ways parted long ago.”

“Stop and think a minute, Marion. I offer you more and offer it more honestly than I ever offered it before, because I know myself better. I am alone in the world––strong, and better able to care for you than I was when I undertook to–––”

“I have never complained.”

“That’s what makes me more anxious to show you now that I can and will do what’s right.”

“Oh, you multiply words! It is too late for you to be here. You are in danger, you say; for the love of Heaven, leave me and go away!”

“You know me, Marion, when my mind is made 330 up. I won’t leave without you.” He leaned with one hand against the ribbon showcase. “If you don’t want to go I will stay right here and pay off the scores I owe. Two men here have stirred this country up too long, anyway. I don’t care much how soon anybody gets me after I round them up. But to-night I felt like this: you and I started out in life together, and we ought to live it out or die together, whether it’s to-night, Marion, or twenty years from to-night.”

“If you want to kill me to-night, I have no resistance to make.”

Sinclair sat down on a low counter-stool, and, bending forward, held his head between his hands. “It oughtn’t all to end here. I know you, and I know you want to do what’s right. I couldn’t kill you without killing myself; you know that.” He straightened up slowly. “Here!” He slipped his revolver from his hip-holster and held the grip of the gun toward her. “Use it on me if you want to. It is your chance to end everything; it may save several lives if you do. I won’t leave McCloud here to crow over me, and, by God, I won’t leave you here for Whispering Smith! I’ll settle with him anyhow. Take the pistol! What are you afraid of? Take it! Use it! I don’t want to live without you. If you make me do it, you’re to blame for the consequences.”

She stood with wide-open eyes, but uttered no word.

“You won’t touch it––then you care a little for me yet,” he murmured.

“No! Do not say so. But I will not do murder.”

“Think about the other, then. Go with me and everything will be all right. I will come back some evening soon for my answer. And until then, if those two men have any use for life, let them keep in the clear. I heard to-night that Du Sang is killed. Do you know whether it is true?”

“It is true.”

An oath half escaping showed how the confirmation cut him. “And Whispering Smith got away! It is Du Sang’s own fault; I told him to keep out of that trap. I stay in the open; and I’m not Du Sang. I’ll choose my own ground for the finish when they want it with me, and when I go I’ll take company––I’ll promise you that. Good-night, Marion. Will you shake hands?”

“No.”

“Damn it, I like your grit, girl! Well, good-night, anyway.”

She closed the door. She had even strength enough to bolt it before his footsteps died away. She put out the light and felt her way blindly back to the work-room. She staggered through it, 332 clutching at the curtains, and fell in the darkness into Dicksie’s arms.

“Marion dear, don’t speak,” Dicksie whispered. “I heard everything. Oh, Marion!” she cried, suddenly conscious of the inertness of the burden in her arms. “Oh, what shall I do?”

Moved by fright to her utmost strength, Dicksie drew the unconscious woman back to her room and managed to lay her on the bed. Marion opened her eyes a few minutes later to see the lights burning, to hear the telephone bell ringing, and to find Dicksie on the edge of the bed beside her.

“Oh, Marion, thank Heaven, you are reviving! I have been frightened to death. Don’t mind the telephone; it is Mr. McCloud. I didn’t know what to do, so I telephoned him.”

“But you had better answer him,” said Marion faintly. The telephone bell was ringing wildly.

“Oh, no! he can wait. How are you, dear? I don’t wonder you were frightened to death. Marion, he means to kill us––every one!”

“No, Dicksie. He will kill me and kill himself; that is where it will end. Dicksie, do answer the telephone. What are you thinking of? Mr. McCloud will be at the door in five minutes. Do you want him in the street to-night?”

Dicksie fled to the telephone, and an excited conference over the wire closed in seeming reassurance 333 at both ends. By that time Marion had regained her steadiness, but she could not talk of what had passed. At times, as the two lay together in the darkness, Marion spoke, but it was not to be answered. “I do not know,” she murmured once wearily. “Perhaps I am doing wrong; perhaps I ought to go with him. I wish, oh, I wish I knew what I ought to do!”