to that?" she asked.

"Wait," he pleaded. "Try to look at it calmly. First of all, I want you.
You know that--though you have never shown me any tenderness, you can't
doubt it--but I can't stay to win your liking. I must go away. As things
stand, your future is uncertain; but as my wife it would, at least, be
safe. However badly the man I leave in charge of the Range may manage
there would be something saved out of the wreck, and I would like to
make that something yours. As I said, I may be away a year, perhaps
eighteen months, and I may never come back. If I don't return the fact
that you would bear my name could cause you no great trouble. It would
lay no restraint on you in any way."

Agatha looked him in the eyes, and spoke with quick intensity. "We can't
contemplate your not coming back. It's unthinkable."

"Thank you," said Wyllard, still with the grave quietness she wondered
at. "Then I'm not sure that my turning up again would greatly complicate
the situation. There would, at least, be one way out of the difficulty.
You wouldn't find your position intolerable if I could make you fond of
me."

Agatha broke into a little, high-strung laugh that was near to weeping.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "aren't you taking too much for granted? Am I
really to believe you are making this fantastic offer seriously? Do you
suppose I would marry you--for your possessions?"

"My proposition does sound cold-blooded. Perhaps it is in one way, but
you wouldn't always find me so practical and calculating. Just now,
because my hand is forced, I am only anticipating things. If I live, you
will some day have to choose between Gregory and me. In that case he
must hold his own if he can."

"Against what you have offered me?" she flung the question at him.

He looked at her with his face set.

"I expect I deserved that. I wanted to make you safe. It's the most
pressing difficulty."

The resentment was still in the girl's eyes.

"So far as I am concerned, you seem to believe it is the only
difficulty. Oh, do you imagine that an offer of the kind you have made
me, made as you have made it, would lead anyone to love you?"

Wyllard spoke with a new tenderness. "When I first saw your picture, and
when I saw you afterwards, I loved your gracious quietness. Now you seem
to have lost your repose and I love you better as you are. There is one
thing, Agatha, that I must ask again, and it's your duty to tell me. Are
you fonder of Gregory tha