She looked at him with agony in her eyes.
“I’ll tell you. Yes, I’ll tell you, and then you must believe. I—I did love you, Jim, even when I refused you. It is true. You make me tell you. And last night—out there on that knoll—I found I couldn’t go on without you. I saw things clearly. I understood what love meant. And my fear of him went away, because I was going to let you know, and then I would be safe—safe with you. Oh, Jim, I was not with him one second. I was out there, sending my heart after you. Now you believe me, don’t you, Jim?” Her voice was pitiful.
Each word Jim uttered seemed a bit torn grimly from his heart. He did not believe her. Now that his trust in her was gone, his unbelief grew and multiplied.
“I am a new-comer in your life,” he said. “Moran has been there for years. You—he saw you attracted me. That became useful to him. Last night shows how useful. Why do you say these things to me about love? Love is not a thing to lie about. I know what love is, because you—some one I thought was you—had made it live in me. I don’t believe you now. I shall never believe you again. The thing you have just said is not true. I believe you have said it—in obedience to him. So he might have an eye which would look into my very soul.”
He stopped. She stood silent, pale, her lips parted as in horror. One hand crept upward flutteringly, stopped at her breast, moved outward toward Jim.
“Jim!” she whispered. “Jim! You didn’t say that. Tell me I didn’t hear that. Tell me! Tell me! You don’t know what you’re saying, what you’re doing. I had won. I had struggled and won. Don’t send me back to him.” Suddenly she gave way and threw herself on a bench beside the path, her hands over her ears as though to shut out some dreadful sound. “It’s a lie!” she panted. “A lie! A lie! A lie!”
Jim felt himself near the breaking-point. He turned and hurried, almost ran, out of the widow’s garden, but even as far as the gate he could hear her voice repeating: “A lie! A lie! A lie!”
All next day train-loads of logs came down from Camp One to be decked in Jim’s yard. Thirty-five thousand feet had been rolled off the first night and day; upward of forty thousand feet were added to it the second. It was enough to supply the saws for a week. Moran had made no visible move; no attempt to interfere with the men in the woods or with the running of trains had been made. This did not reassure Jim. Moran was not the man to be beaten so easily. He knew he would strike back—that the Clothespin Club would strike back—for Moran and the Club were as one in this war.