"I wonder--where he is by now," Linda answered in a strange voice. "No one in this world can answer that question, Simon. Tell me what you want." She opened the door. She couldn't bear to show fear of this man. And she knew that an appearance of courage, at least, was the wisest course. "No matter about him now. I want to talk to you on business. If I had meant rough measures, I wouldn't have come alone." "No," Linda scorned. "You would have brought your whole murdering band with you. The Turners believe in overwhelming numbers." The words stung him but he smiled grimly into her face. "I've come in peace, Linda," he said, more gently. "I've come to give you a last chance to make friends." He walked past her into the room. He straightened the chair that had been upset, smiling strangely the while, and sat down in it. "Then tell me what you have to tell me," she said. "I'm in a hurry to go to bed--and this really isn't the hour for calls." He looked a long time into her face. She found it hard to hold her own gaze. Many things could be doubted about this man, but his power and his courage were not among them. The smile died from his lips, the lines deepened on his face. She realized as never before the tempestuous passions and unfathomable intensity of his nature. "We've never been good friends," Simon went on slowly. "We never could be," the girl answered. "We've stood for different things." "At first my efforts to make friends were just--to win you over to our side. It didn't work--all it did was to waken other desires in me--desires that perhaps have come to mean more than the possession of the lands. You know what they are. You've always known--that any time you wished--you could come and rule my house." She nodded. She knew that she had won, against her will, the strange, somber love of this mighty man. She had known it for months. "As my wife--don't make any mistake about that. Linda, I'm a stern, hard man. I've never known how to woo. I don't know that I want to know how, the way it is done by weaker men. It has never been my way to ask for what I wanted. But sometimes it seems to me that if I'd been a little more gentle--not so masterful and so relentless--that I'd won you long ago." Linda looked up bravely into his face. "No, Simon. You could have never--never won me! Oh, can't you see--even in this awful place a woman wants something more than just brute strength and determination. Every woman prays to find strength in the man she loves--but it isn't the kind that you have, the kind that makes your men grovel before you, and makes me tremble when I'm talking to you. It's a big, calm strength--and I can't tell you what it is. It's something the pines have, maybe--strength not to yield to the passions, but to restrain, not to be afraid of, but to cling to--to stand upright and honorable and manly, and make a woman strong just to see it in the man she loves."