“That’s fine.  Sally, you have ideas in your pretty little head.  And once I thought it held nothing but—­” She put a hand on my mouth.  “I must go now,” she said and rose.  She stood close to me and put her arms around my neck.  “One thing more, Russ.  It—­it was dif—­difficult telling Diane we—­we were engaged.  I lied to Uncle.  But what else could I have told Diane?  I—­I—­Oh—­was it—­” She faltered.

“Sally, you lied to Sampson to save me.  But you must have accepted me before you could have told Diane the truth.”

“Oh, Russ, I had—­in my heart!  But it has been some time since you asked me—­and—­and—­”

“You imagined my offer might have been withdrawn.  Well, it stands.”

She slipped closer to me then, with that soft sinuousness of a woman, and I believed she might have kissed me had I not held back, toying with my happiness.

“Sally, do you love me?”

“Ever so much.  Since the very first.”

“I’m a marshal, a Ranger like Steele, a hunter of criminals.  It’s a hard life.  There’s spilling of blood.  And any time I—­I might—­All the same, Sally—­will you be my wife?”

“Oh, Russ!  Yes.  But let me tell you when your duty’s done here that I will have a word to say about your future.  It’ll be news to you to learn I’m an orphan.  And I’m not a poor one.  I own a plantation in Louisiana.  I’ll make a planter out of you.  There!”

“Sally!  You’re rich?” I exclaimed.

“I’m afraid I am.  But nobody can ever say you married me for my money.”

“Well, no, not if you tell of my abject courtship when I thought you a poor relation on a visit.  My God!  Sally, if I only could see this Ranger job through safely and to success!”

“You will,” she said softly.

Then I took a ring from my little finger and slipped it on hers.  “That was my sister’s.  She’s dead now.  No other girl ever wore it.  Let it be your engagement ring.  Sally, I pray I may somehow get through this awful Ranger deal to make you happy, to become worthy of you!”

“Russ, I fear only one thing,” she whispered.

“And what’s that?”

“There will be fighting.  And you—­oh, I saw into your eyes the other night when you stood with your hands up.  You would kill anybody, Russ.  It’s awful!  But don’t think me a baby.  I can conceive what your work is, what a man you must be.  I can love you and stick to you, too.  But if you killed a blood relative of mine I would have to give you up.  I’m a Southerner, Russ, and blood is thick.  I scorn my uncle and I hate my cousin George.  And I love you.  But don’t you kill one of my family, I—­Oh, I beg of you go as far as you dare to avoid that!”

I could find no voice to answer her, and for a long moment we were locked in an embrace, breast to breast and lips to lips, an embrace of sweet pain.

Then she broke away, called a low, hurried good-by, and stole like a shadow into the darkness.