Patty Sinclair felt herself drifting under the spell of his compelling ardor. "Why not?" she asked herself. "Why not marry this man and give up the hopeless struggle?" She thought of her depleted bank account. At best, she could not hope to hold out much longer. Bethune had taken her hand as he talked, and she had not withdrawn it from his palm. Swiftly he bent his head and pressed the brown hand passionately to his lips. She felt his grip tighten as the burning kisses covered her hand--her wrist. She drew the hand away.
"But, I do not want to leave the hill country," she said, quite calmly. "I shall never leave it until I have vindicated my father's course in the eyes of the people back home--the men who scoffed at him, and called him a ne'er-do-well, and a dreamer--who refused to back his judgment with their miserable dollars--who killed him with their cruelty, and their doubt!"
"I hoped you would say that!" exclaimed Bethune, his eyes alight with approval. "I knew you would say it! The daughter of your father could not do otherwise. I knew him well, and loved him as a son should love. And I, too, would see his judgment vindicated in the eyes of all the world. Listen, together we will remain, and together we will locate the lost strike, if it takes every cent I own." The man's voice gripped in its intensity, and Patty's eyes returned from the distance where the summer haze bathed far mountain tops in soft purple, and looked into the eyes of velvet black.
"But, why should you want to marry me?" she inquired, a puzzled little frown wrinkling her forehead. "You hardly know me. You have not always lived in the hills. You have met many women."
"A man meets many women. He marries but one. You ask me why I want to marry you. I cannot tell you why. Many times since we first met I have asked myself why. I, who have openly scoffed at the yoke, and boasted proudly of my freedom. I do not know why, unless it is that to me you are the embodiment of all womanhood--of all that is desirable and worth while, or maybe the reason is in the fact that while I am with you I am supremely happy, and while I am absent from you I am restless and unhappy--a prey to my fears. I suppose it all sums up in the reason--world-old, but ever new--because I love you." The man was upon his feet, now, bending toward her with arms outstretched. For just an instant Patty hesitated, then shook her head.
