The trail I've been followin'
for so many years was twisted en' tangled, but it's straightenin'
out now. An', Jane Withersteen, you crossed it long ago to ease
poor Milly's agony. That, whether you want or not, makes Lassiter
your friend. But you cross it now strangely to mean somethin to
me--God knows what!--unless by your noble blindness to incite me
to greater hatred of Mormon men."
Jane felt swayed by a strength that far exceeded her own. In a
clash of wills with this man she would go to the wall. If she
were to influence him it must be wholly through womanly
allurement. There was that about Lassiter which commanded her
respect. She had abhorred his name; face to face with him, she
found she feared only his deeds. His mystic suggestion, his
foreshadowing of something that she was to mean to him, pierced
deep into her mind. She believed fate had thrown in her way the
lover or husband of Milly Erne. She believed that through her an
evil man might be reclaimed. His allusion to what he called her
blindness terrified her. Such a mistaken idea of his might
unleash the bitter, fatal mood she sensed in him. At any cost she
must placate this man; she knew the die was cast, and that if
Lassiter did not soften to a woman's grace and beauty and wiles,
then it would be because she could not make him.
"I reckon you'll hear no more such talk from me," Lassiter went
on, presently.
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