“But, Sally, there’s a chance—­a mere chance I can do the job without—­”

Then she let go of me.  She had given up.  I thought she was going to drop, and drew her toward the stone.  I cursed the day I ever saw Neal and the service.  Where, now, was the arch prettiness, the gay, sweet charm of Sally Langdon?  She looked as if she were suffering from a desperate physical injury.  And her final breakdown showed how, one way or another, I was lost to her.

As she sank on the stone I had my supreme wrench, and it left me numb, hard, in a cold sweat.  “Don’t betray me!  I’ll forestall him!  He’s planned nothing for to-day,” I whispered hoarsely.  “Sally—­you dearest, gamest little girl in the world!  Remember I loved you, even if I couldn’t prove it your way.  It’s for his sake.  I’m to blame for their love.  Some day my act will look different to you.  Good-by!”

Chapter 13

RUSS SITTELL IN ACTION

I ran like one possessed of devils down that rough slope, hurdling the stones and crashing through the brush, with a sound in my ears that was not all the rush of the wind.  When I reached a level I kept running; but something dragged at me.  I slowed down to a walk.  Never in my life had I been victim of such sensation.  I must flee from something that was drawing me back.  Apparently one side of my mind was unalterably fixed, while the other was a hurrying conglomeration of flashes of thought, reception of sensations.  I could not get calm.

By and by, almost involuntarily, with a fleeting look backward as if in expectation of pursuit, I hurried faster on.  Action seemed to make my state less oppressive; it eased the weight upon me.  But the farther I went on, the harder it was to continue.  I was turning my back upon love, happiness, success in life, perhaps on life itself.  I was doing that, but my decision had not been absolute.  There seemed no use to go on farther until I was absolutely sure of myself.  I received a clear warning thought that such work as seemed haunting and driving me could never be carried out in the mood under which I labored.  I hung on to that thought.  Several times I slowed up, then stopped, only to tramp on again.

At length, as I mounted a low ridge, Linrock lay bright and green before me, not faraway, and the sight was a conclusive check.  There were mesquites on the ridge, and I sought the shade beneath them.  It was the noon hour, with hot, glary sun and no wind.  Here I had to have out my fight.  If ever in my varied life of exciting adventure I strove to think, to understand myself, to see through difficulties, I assuredly strove then.  I was utterly unlike myself; I could not bring the old self back; I was not the same man I once had been.  But I could understand why.  It was because of Sally Langdon, the gay and roguish girl who had bewitched me, the girl whom love had made a woman—­the kind of woman meant to make life beautiful for me.