Indistinct voices came
to me and footsteps seemingly a long way off. I heard the wind in the
rose-bush outside. Some one walked down the stony court. Then a shrill
neigh of a horse pierced the silence. A rider was mounting out there for
some reason. With my life at stake I grasped all the sweetness of that
situation. Sally stirred in my arms, raised a red, tear-stained yet
happy face, and tried to smile. "It isn't any time to cry," she
whispered. "But I had to. You can't understand what it made me feel to
learn you're no drunkard, no desperado, but a _man_--a man like that
Ranger!" Very sweetly and seriously she kissed me again. "Russ, if I
didn't honestly and truly love you before, I do now."
Then she stood up and faced me with the fire and intelligence of a
woman in her eyes. "Tell me now. You were spying on my uncle?"
Briefly I told her what had happened before I entered her room, not
omitting a terse word as to the character of the men I had watched.
"My God! So it's Uncle Roger! I knew something was very wrong here--with
him, with the place, the people. And right off I hated George Wright.
Russ, does Diane know?"
"She knows something. I haven't any idea how much.
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