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. Then, as things stand, your future is uncertain; and as
my wife it would, at least, be safer. 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, 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 steadily in the eyes, and spoke as she felt. "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 thing. There would, at least, be one way out of the
difficulty. You wouldn't find the situation intolerable if I could
make you fond of me."

The girl broke into a little, high-strung laugh that had a tinge of
bitterness in it.

"Oh," she said, "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?"

"It sounds bloodless? Perhaps it is in one way, but you wouldn't
always find me that. Just now, because my hand is forced, I am only
anticipating things. If I live, you will some day have to choose
between me and Gregory. In this 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 and the signs of restraint very
plain on it.

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

The bitterness was still in the girl's eyes.

"So far as I am concerned, you seem to believe it is the only one."
Then her anger seemed to carry her away. "Oh," she said, "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 smiled. "When I first saw your picture, and when I saw you
afterwards, I loved your gracious quietness. Now you seem to have got
rid of it, I love you better as you are. There is, however, one thing
I must ask again, and it's your clear duty to tell me. Are you fonder
of Gregory than you feel you ever