a girl's in love with love--at first. I've not really lied to
you. I'm trying to be honest before marriage. Don't fear I'll not be
afterward. There's much in that, don't you think? Maybe there's
something, too, in a woman's ability to adjust and compromise? I don't
know. We ought to be as happy as the average married couple, don't you
think? None of them are happy for so very long, they say. They say love
doesn't last long. I hope not. One thing, I believe marriage is easier
to beat than love is."

"How old are you, really, Molly?"

"I am just over nineteen, sir."

"You are wise for that; you are old."

"Yes--since we started for Oregon."

He sat in sullen silence for a long time, all the venom of his nature
gathering, all his savage jealousy.

"You mean since you met that renegade, traitor and thief, Will Banion!
Tell me, isn't that it?"

"Yes, that's true. I'm older now. I know more."

"And you'll marry me without love. You love him without marriage? Is
that it?"

"I'll never marry a thief."

"But you love one?"

"I thought I loved you."

"But you do love him, that man!"

Now at last she turned to him, gazing straight through the mist of her
tears.

"Sam, if you really loved me, would you ask that? Wouldn't you just try
to be so gentle and good that there'd no longer be any place in my heart
for any other sort of love, so I'd learn to think that our love was the
only sort in the world? Wouldn't you take your chance and make good on
it, believing that it must be in nature that a woman can love more than
one man, or love men in more than one way? Isn't marriage broader and
with more chance for both? If you love me and not just yourself alone,
can't you take your chance as I am taking mine? And after all, doesn't
a woman give the odds? If you do love, me--"

"If I do, then my business is to try to make you forget Will Banion."

"There is no other way you could. He may die. I promise you I'll never
see him after I'm married.

"And I'll promise you another thing"--her strained nerves now were
speaking truth for her--"if by any means I ever learn--if I ever
believe--that Major Banion is not what I now think him, I'll go on my
knees to him. I'll know marriage was wrong and love was right all the
time."

"Fine, my dear! Much happiness! But unfortunately for Major Banion's
passing romance, the official records of a military court-martial and a
dishonorable discharge from the Army are facts which none o