She was too just to forget her own lack of strength. Her eyes clouded with sadness, and brimmed. "I hate myself for coming," she said fiercely. "We love each other. That isn't a crime," he declared. "For you, it isn't. But it is for me. Because--it'll hurt Marylyn. Oh, you don't understand--I can't take her happiness. I can't! I can't!" "It's not your fault that I love you, Dallas." "What happens next _is_." He shook his head--smiling. She raised her chin, as if striving to master herself. "I knew all day that I'd come," she said steadily. "I'd 'a' come if I--died for it!" "Ah, my dearest!" He put his hands upon her shoulders, drawing her near again. She stepped back determinedly. "Let me tell you," she begged. "Please, I knew I'd come. So I made up my mind I'd do what was white--ask you to visit Marylyn, and talk to her. If you would, if you _only_ would, why, at last, you couldn't help liking her!" Again he smiled at her, shaking his head. "I love _you_, not Marylyn." "You're a good man," she said. "You wouldn't like to see me do anything that wasn't right square. You wouldn't--think much of me if I did. I'll do wrong if--if I take you from her." "I wouldn't have you do anything wrong," he declared stoutly. "You never could. But, dear, Marylyn is a child yet. She's too young to know her own mind. And we're taking her more seriously than she takes herself." "You don't know how sick and down in the mouth she's been. Just before father--went, she got a little better. After that, for a while, she was bad again. But I could see it wasn't all about father. There's something else. She's changed so--never talks much, just sits and looks and looks----" She turned away. "I'm--I'm all she's got," she went on. "All her life I've tended her, just as if I was her mother. I fed her and dressed her. When she hurt herself, she came to me. Now, she's hurt worse than she's ever been, and she's come to me about it. I'm bound to help her." "I happened to be the first man she got to know this side of Texas. She'd forget me in a week if she met someone else. If she don't meet someone else, I'm afraid she'll have to be hurt." Dallas straightened proudly. "I'll never hurt her," she said. "Nor I, if I can help it. She needn't know about us, just yet." "I won't lie to her, either." "Not lie, dear. But you won't refuse to come out here----" "I do! I do! I'll never come again." "Ah, Dallas, why should we deny ourselves that much? Why keep apart? I've lost the last dear one I had. You've lost your father, you're alone with your little sister. Come to me." "You'd take me away?" she asked. "You'd have me give up the claim? To forget what happened?" "God help me--no! I ask you to share your life with me, your work, your revenge, everything." "Not yet----"