"Because I guess I need to sleep somewhere. Because nothing on earth could make me share roof with the woman who's my wife. Gee, my wife! Say, Nan, the thought of it nearly sets me crazy." "Does it? You didn't feel that way--two nights ago." The man's eyes met the girl's incredulously. "How can you talk that way?" he demanded roughly. "I didn't know a thing then. I thought she was all she seemed. Maybe I was just a blind fool, crazy with love. Anyway--I hadn't learned the hell lying around her heart." "I s'pose there is hell lying around her heart?" Nan's words were provocative. Yet they were spoke in such a tone of simplicity as to rob them of all apparent intent. Jeff was in no mood for patience. Swift resentment followed upon his incredulous stare. "Do you need me to give it you all again?" he cried fiercely. "It don't need savvee to grip things." Then his voice rose. "And to think those dollars have fed her, and clothed her, a body as fair as an angel's, and a heart as foul as hell." Then his tone dropped as if he were afraid of the sound of his own voice. "Say, thank God I kept my hands off her. If she'd been a man----" He left his sentence unfinished. In her mind Nan completed it. But aloud she gave it another ending. "If she'd been a man I don't guess she'd have been there to have you lay hands on her." There was a new note in the girl's tones. But it passed Jeff by. "No," he said with almost foolish seriousness. "Say, Jeff," the girl went on gently, a moment later, "aren't you acting a teeny bit crazy over this? I mean talking of souls foul as hell. And--an' not sharing the same roof with the woman you've sworn to love, and--and cherish as long as you both live. She hasn't done a thing wrong by you since you said--an' meant that. She hasn't done a thing wrong anyway." The denial was so gentle yet so decided. Had there been heat in it it must have been ineffective. As it was Jeff stared incredulously and speechless, and the girl went on: "You think I'm wrong," she said. "Maybe you think I'm crazy, same as I guess this thing's made you feel." She shook her head. "I'm not--sure. Take us here. Maybe I'm chasing around through the hills. Chance runs me plumb into the camp of these rustlers who're cutting into your profits on the Obar. I come right in and hand you the story. You and Bud round up a bunch of boys and I take you to where the camp's hidden. You hold 'em up, and you hang them. Well, I guess the pleasantest moment of that racket for you would be to get back to home and hand me a bunch of dollars. Say, I can see you doing it. I can see your smile. I can hear you sayin': 'Take 'em, little Nan, an' buy yourself some swell fixing.' And say, Jeff, I wouldn't have done a thing less than your Evie's done. That's how I'd say now, acting as you are, you aren't the 'Honest Jeff' I've always known. You're not fair to Evie, you aren't just--before God."