“One word only—­only a word and I’m not going to say anything in defence of myself.  For it’s all true—­everything is true except that I would have stolen from you.  I am called Ramerrez; I have robbed; I am a road agent—­an outlaw by profession.  Yes, I’m all that—­and my father was that before me.  I was brought up, educated, thrived on thieves’ money, I suppose, but until six months ago when my father died, I did not know it.  I lived much in Monterey—­I lived there as a gentleman.  When we met that day I wasn’t the thing I am to-day.  I only learned the truth when my father died and left me with a rancho and a band of thieves—­nothing else—­nothing for us all, and I—­but what’s the good of going into it—­the circumstances.  You wouldn’t understand if I did.  I was my father’s son; I have no excuse; I guess, perhaps, it was in me—­in the blood.  Anyhow, I took to the road, and I didn’t mind it much after the first time.  But I drew the line at killing—­I wouldn’t have that.  That’s the man that I am, the blackguard that I am.  But—­” here he raised his eyes and said with a voice that was charged with feeling—­“I swear to you that from the moment I kissed you to-night I meant to change, I meant to—­”

“The devil you did!” broke from the Girl’s lips, but with a sound that was not unlike a sob.

“I did, believe me, I did,” insisted the man.  “I meant to go straight and take you with me—­but only honestly—­when I could honestly.  I meant to work for you.  Why, every word you said to me to-night about being a thief cut into me like a knife.  Over and over again I have said to myself, she must never know.  And now—­well, it’s all over—­I have finished.”

“An’ that’s all?” questioned the Girl with averted face.

“No—­yes—­what’s the use . . .?”

The Girl’s anger blazed forth again.

“But there’s jest one thing you’ve overlooked explainin’, Mr. Johnson. 
It shows exactly what you are.  It wasn’t so much your bein’ a road agent
I got against you.  It’s this:”  And here she stamped her foot excitedly. 
“You kissed me—­you got my first kiss.”

Johnson hung his head.

“You said,” kept on the Girl, hotly, “you’d ben thinkin’ o’ me ever since you saw me at Monterey, an’ all the time you walked straight off an’ ben kissin’ that other woman.”  She shrugged her shoulder and laughed grimly.  “You’ve got a girl,” she continued, growing more and more indignant.  “It’s that I’ve got against you.  It’s my first kiss I’ve got against you.  It’s that Nina Micheltorena that I can’t forgive.  So now you can git—­git!” And with these words she unbolted the door and concluded tensely: 

“If they kill you I don’t care.  Do you hear, I don’t care . . .”

At those bitter words spoken by lips which failed so utterly to hide their misery, the Girl’s face became colourless.

With the instinct of a brave man to sell his life as dearly as possible, Johnson took a couple of guns from his pocket; but the next moment, as if coming to the conclusion that death without the Girl would be preferable, he put them back, saying: