But--oh, Lassiter, wait, wait! Give me time.
I'm not what I was. Once it was so easy to love. Now it's easy to
hate. Wait! My faith in God--some God--still lives. By it I see
happier times for you, poor passion-swayed wanderer! For me--a
miserable, broken woman. I loved your sister Milly. I will love
you. I can't have fallen so low--I can't be so abandoned by
God--that I've no love left to give you. Wait! Let us forget
Milly's sad life. Ah, I knew it as no one else on earth! There's
one thing I shall tell you--if you are at my death-bed, but I
can't speak now."
"I reckon I don't want to hear no more," said Lassiter.
Jane leaned against him, as if some pent-up force had rent its
way out, she fell into a paroxysm of weeping. Lassiter held her
in silent sympathy. By degrees she regained composure, and she
was rising, sensible of being relieved of a weighty burden, when
a sudden start on Lassiter's part alarmed her.
"I heard hosses--hosses with muffled hoofs!" he said; and he got
up guardedly.
"Where's Fay?" asked Jane, hurriedly glancing round the shady
knoll. The bright-haired child, who had appeared to be close all
the time, was not in sight.
"Fay!" called Jane.
No answering shout of glee. No patter of flying feet. Jane saw
Lassiter stiffen.
"Fay--oh--Fay!" Jane almost screamed.
The leaves quivered and rustled; a lonesome cricket chirped in
the grass, a bee hummed by.
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