“I can never go,” she said, “as long as John Mark is alive.”

“Then he’s as good as dead,” said Bill Gregg.  “We both got guns, and, no matter how husky John Mark may be, we’ll get at him!”

The girl shook her head.  All the joy had gone out of her face and left her wistful and misty eyed.  “You don’t understand, and I can’t tell you.  You can never harm John Mark.”

“Why not?” asked Bill Gregg.  “Has he got a thousand men around him all the time?  Even if he has they’s ways of getting at him.”

“Not a thousand men,” said the girl, “but, you see, he doesn’t need help.  He’s never failed.  That’s what they say of him:  ’John Mark, the man who has never lost!’”

“Listen to me,” said Ronicky angrily.  “Seems to me that everybody stands around and gapes at this gent with the sneer a terrible lot, without a pile of good reasons behind ’em.  Never failed?  Why, lady, here’s one night when he’s failed and failed bad.  He’s lost you!”

“No,” said Caroline.

“Not lost you?” asked Bill Gregg.  “Say, you ain’t figuring on going back to him?”

“I have to go back.”

“Why?” demanded Gregg.

“It’s because of you,” interpreted Ronicky Doone.  “She knows that, if she leaves you, Mark will start on your trail.  Mark is the name of the gent with the sneer, Bill.”

“He’s got to die, then, Ronicky.”

“I been figuring on the same thing for a long time, but he’ll die hard, Bill.”

“Don’t you see?” asked the girl.  “Both of you are strong men and brave, but against John Mark I know that you’re helpless.  It isn’t the first time people have hated him.  Hated?  Who does anything but hate him?  But that doesn’t make any difference.  He wins, he always wins, and that’s why I’ve come to you.”

She turned to Bill Gregg, but such a sad resignation held her eyes that Ronicky Doone bowed his head.

“I’ve come to tell you that I love you, that I have always loved you, since I first began writing to you.  All of yourself showed through your letters, plain and strong and simple and true.  I’ve come tonight to tell you that I love you, but that we can never marry.  Not that I fear him for myself, but for you.”

“Listen here,” said Bill Gregg, “ain’t there police in this town?”

“What could they do?  In all of the things which he has done no one has been able to accuse him of a single illegal act—­at least no one has ever been able to prove a thing.  And yet he lives by crime.  Does that give you an idea of the sort of man he is?”

“A low hound,” said Bill Gregg bitterly, “that’s what he shows to be.”

“Tell me straight,” said Ronicky, “what sort of a hold has he got over you?  Can you tell us?”

“I have to tell you,” said the girl gravely, “if you insist, but won’t you take my word for it and ask no more?”

“We have a right to know,” said Ronicky.  “Bill has a right, and, me being Bill’s friend, I have a right, too.”