Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/170

 “It meant everything at the time. It means a great deal now; enough so that I’d do almost anything—but not the thing I did. I couldn’t since this has come to us. Some day I’ll tell you what it issome time soon, before you go. You’re so understanding with animals, so tolerant of their faults, that you may find some extenuation for me.”

“Whatever you have done won’t matter a straw,” he said. “I don’t even care to know what it is. It’s past. You’re mine by every natural law. And I want you—now!”

“Not now,” she said. “Sometime perhaps. I can’t tell—only hope. But if that time ever comes I promise to send for you. Will you be satisfied with that?”

“For now,” he assented, “but not for long. The one big, outstanding fact is that we belong. Nothing, absolutely not one thing I can think of can stand for long against that fact. It’s a natural law—the most compelling law of nature. If there is any man-made convention which says it is wrong we’ll shatter it.”

He swept her to him, held her close, kissed her until she was dizzy with love. The lobo cry rolled up out of the valley below, swept past them