deny me," he
continued. "For how long has your engagement with Mr. Ridgway been
broken, may I ask?"

"Between fifteen and twenty minutes."

"A lovers' quarrel, perhaps!" he hazarded gently.

"On the contrary, quite final and irrevocable Mr. Ridgway and I have
never been lovers. She was not sure whether this last was mean as a
confession or a justification.

"Not lovers?" He waited for her to explain Her proud eyes faced him.
"We became engaged for other reasons. I thought that did not matter.
But I find my other reasons were not sufficient. To-day I terminated
the engagement. But it is only fair to say that Mr. Ridgway had come
here for that purpose. I merely anticipated him." Her self-contempt
would not let her abate one jot of the humiliating truth. She flayed
herself with a whip of scorn quite lost on Hobart.

A wave of surging hope was flushing his heart, but he held himself well
in hand.

"I must be presumptuous still," he said. "I must find out if you broke
the engagement because you care for another man?"

She tried to meet his shining eyes and could not. "You have no right to
ask that."

"Perhaps not till I have asked something else. I wonder if I should
have any chance if I were to tell you that I love you?"

Her glance swept him shyly with a delicious little laugh. "You never
can tell till you try."

End of Project Gutenberg's Ridgway of Montana, by William MacLeod Raine

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