“There are lots of things you don’t know about me.  Some of them you won’t like.  But if you love me, perhaps you’ll forgive them, and then—­because I love you—­maybe I’ll grow out of them.  I feel to-night as if anything were possible.  The most wonderful thing that ever happened to me has come into my life.”

“My heart is saying that, too, sweetheart.”

“I love to hear you say that I’m—­nice,” she confided.  “Because, you know, lots of people don’t think so.  The best people in Battle Butte won’t have anything to do with me.  I’m one of the Rutherford gang.”

The light was full on his face, so that she saw the dawning horror in his eyes.

“What is it?  What are you thinking?” she cried.

He gave a little groan and his hands fell slackly from her.  “I’d forgotten.”  The words came in a whisper, as if he spoke to himself rather than to her.

“Forgotten what?” she echoed; and like a flash added:  “That I’m a Rutherford.  Is that what you mean?”

“That you are the daughter of Hal Rutherford and that I’m the son of John Beaudry.”

“You mean that you would be ashamed to marry a Rutherford,” she said, her face white in the fire glow.

“No.”  He brushed her challenge aside and went straight to what was in his mind.  “I’m thinking of what happened seventeen years ago,” he answered miserably.

“What did happen that could come between you and me to-night?”

“Have you forgotten, too?” He turned to the fire with a deep breath that was half a sob.

“What is it?  Tell me,” she demanded.

“Your father killed mine at Battle Butte.”

A shiver ran through her lithe, straight body.  “No . . .  No!  Say it isn’t true, Roy.”

“It’s true.  I was there . . .  Didn’t they ever tell you about it?”

“I’ve heard about the fight when Sheriff Beaudry was killed.  Jess Tighe had his spine injured in it.  But I never knew that dad . . .  You’re sure of it?” she flung at him.

“Yes.  He led the attackers.  I suppose he thought of it as a feud.  My father had killed one of his people in a gun fight.”

She, too, looked into the fire.  It was a long time before she spoke, and then in a small, lifeless voice.  “I suppose you . . . hate me.”

“Hate you!” His voice shook with agitation.  “That would make everything easy.  But—­there is no other woman in the world for me but you.”

Almost savagely she turned toward him.  “Do you mean that?”

“I never mean anything so much.”

“Then what does it matter about our fathers?  We have our own lives to live.  If we’ve found happiness we’ve a right to it.  What happened seventeen years ago can’t touch us—­not unless we let it.”

White-lipped, drear-eyed, Roy faced her hopelessly.  “I never thought of it before, but it is true what the Bible says about the sins of the fathers.  How can I shake hands in friendship with the man who killed mine?  Would it be loyal or decent to go into his family and make him my father by marrying his daughter?”