Part 14 (1/2)
”No. If it could, I would not be stopping here now to say so much.”
He stepped closer, frowning.
”What is it you are saying then--that a man's a worse brute when he goes mad, as I did?”
”I expect not,” said Molly Wingate queerly. ”It is very far, out here.
It's some other world, I believe. And I suppose men have kissed girls. I suppose no girl ever was married who was not ever kissed.”
”What are you saying?”
”I said I wanted you to know the truth about a woman--about me. That's just because it's not ever going to be between us. It can't be, because of that other matter in Mexico. If it had not been for that, I suppose after a time I wouldn't have minded what you did back there. I might have kissed you. It must be terrible to feel as you feel now, so ashamed. But after all--”
”It was criminal!” he broke out. ”But even criminals are loved by women.
They follow them to jail, to the gallows. They don't mind what the man is--they love him, they forgive him. They stand by him to the very end!”
”Yes, I suppose many a girl loves a man she knows she never can marry.
Usually she marries someone else. But kissing! That's terrible!”
”Yes. But you will not let me make it splendid and not terrible. You say it never can be--that means we've got to part. Well, how can I forget?”
”I don't suppose you can. I don't suppose that--that I can!”
”What are you going to say? Don't! Oh, please don't!”
But she still went on, strangely, not in the least understanding her own swift change of mood, her own intent with him, _vis-a-vis_, here in the wilderness.
”While we were walking down here just now,” said she, ”somehow it all began to seem not so wrong. It only seemed to stay wrong for you to have deceived me about yourself--what you really were--when you were in the Army. I could maybe forgive you up to that far, for you did--for men are--well, men. But about that other--you knew all the time we couldn't--couldn't ever--I'd never marry a thief.”
The great and wistful regret of her voice was a thing not to be escaped.
She stood, a very splendid figure, clean and marvelous of heart as she was begrimed and bedraggled of body now, her great vital force not abated by what she had gone through. She spread her hands just apart and looked at him in what she herself felt was to be the last meeting of their lives; in which she could afford to reveal all her soul for once to a man, and then go about a woman's business of living a life fed on the husks of love given her by some other man.
He knew that he had seen one more miracle. But, chastened now, he could, he must, keep down his own eager arms. He heard her speak once more, her voice like some melancholy bell of vespers of a golden evening.
”Oh, Will Banion, how could you take away a girl's heart and leave her miserable all her life?”
The cry literally broke from her. It seemed in her own ears the sudden voice of some other woman speaking--some unaccountable, strange woman whom she never had seen or known in all her life.
”Your--heart?” he whispered, now close to her in the dusk. ”You were not--you did not--you--”
But he choked. She nodded, not brazenly or crudely or coa.r.s.ely, not even bravely, but in utter simplicity. For the time she was wholly free of woman coquetry. It was as though the elements had left her also elemental. Her words now were of the earth, the air, the fire, the floods of life.
”Yes,” she said, ”I will tell you now, because of what you have done for me. If you gave me life, why shouldn't I give you love--if so I could?”
”Love? Give me love?”
”Yes! I believe I was going to love you, until now, although I had promised him--you know--Captain Woodhull. Oh, you see, I understand a little of what it was to you--what made you--” She spoke disconnectedly.
”I believe--I believe I'd not have cared. I believe I could follow a man to the gallows. Now I will not, because you didn't tell me you were a thief. I can't trust you. But I'll kiss you once for good-by. I'm sorry.