“But, Sally, you haven’t told me anything,” I remonstrated tenderly.  “Do you love me?”

“I think so,” she whispered.

“Sally, will you marry me?”

She disengaged herself then, sat erect and faced away from me, with her breast heaving.

“No, Russ,” she presently said, once more calm.

“But Sally—­if you love me—­” I burst out, and then stopped, stilled by something in her face.

“I can’t help—­loving you, Russ,” she said.  “But to promise to marry you, that’s different.  Why, Russ, I know nothing about you, not even your last name.  You’re not a—­a steady fellow.  You drink, gamble, fight.  You’ll kill somebody yet.  Then I’ll not love you.  Besides, I’ve always felt you’re not just what you seemed.  I can’t trust you.  There’s something wrong about you.”

I knew my face darkened, and perhaps hope and happiness died in it.  Swiftly she placed a kind hand on my shoulder.

“Now, I’ve hurt you.  Oh, I’m sorry.  Your asking me makes such a difference. They are not in earnest.  But, Russ, I had to tell you why I couldn’t be engaged to you.”

“I’m not good enough for you.  I’d no right to ask you to marry me,” I replied abjectly.

“Russ, don’t think me proud,” she faltered.  “I wouldn’t care who you were if I could only—­only respect you.  Some things about you are splendid, you’re such a man, that’s why I cared.  But you gamble.  You drink—­and I hate that.  You’re dangerous they say, and I’d be, I am in constant dread you’ll kill somebody.  Remember, Russ, I’m no Texan.”

This regret of Sally’s, this faltering distress at giving me pain, was such sweet assurance that she did love me, better than she knew, that I was divided between extremes of emotion.

“Will you wait?  Will you trust me a little?  Will you give me a chance?  After all, maybe I’m not so bad as I seem.”

“Oh, if you weren’t!  Russ, are you asking me to trust you?”

“I beg you to—­dearest.  Trust me and wait.”

“Wait?  What for?  Are you really on the square, Russ?  Or are you what George calls you—­a drunken cowboy, a gambler, sharp with the cards, a gun-fighter?”

My face grew cold as I felt the blood leave it.  At that moment mention of George Wright fixed once for all my hate of him.

Bitter indeed was it that I dared not give him the lie.  But what could I do?  The character Wright gave me was scarcely worse than what I had chosen to represent.  I had to acknowledge the justice of his claim, but nevertheless I hated him.

“Sally, I ask you to trust me in spite of my reputation.”

“You ask me a great deal,” she replied.

“Yes, it’s too much.  Let it be then only this—­you’ll wait.  And while you wait, promise not to flirt with Wright and Waters.”

“Russ, I’ll not let George or any of them so much as dare touch me,” she declared in girlish earnestness, her voice rising.  “I’ll promise if you’ll promise me not to go into those saloons any more.”