CHAPTER XXIV

CONCLUSION

It was past midnight, and they were sitting in the stern of the _Topeka_ listening to the chopchop of the water under her flat bottom. Save for an occasional guffaw and curse, evidence of some nocturnal card-party, silence reigned aboard.

A full moon flooded the landscape, under which the lofty banks, and the great mountains beyond, shimmered in fantastic manner; wherein the river, mighty as it was, seemed dwarfed like unto a silver serpent, winding and turning down to the sea.

Since morning Jim had lived in some wonderful paradise, which even now seemed unstable, fugitive, and dreamlike.

"Angela, tell me it isn't a dream."

"It's no dream, dear."

"Ah!"

He nestled closer to her and found the soft small hand beneath the rug spread over their knees. There was no attempt on her part to withdraw it.

Instead, she gripped the big muscular fingers caressingly.

"I can't get it straight yet," he muttered. "It was only this morning I was in h.e.l.l. You're sure this ain't some game that'll land me back in the mud?"

She laughed merrily and pulled his arm round her waist.

"You dear, doubting man! If it's me you want I'm here with you. I'm substantial enough to be felt, aren't I?"

"But some things seem too good, and this is one of them. I had a hunch I'd never quite reach out over that pride of yours."

"I've no pride now, Jim, save pride of possession." Her eyes shone in the moonlight. "Back there in the wilderness I dreamed of this day, but it seemed so far away."

He nodded his head slowly.

"And yet you ran away?"

"It was on that last occasion that I found myself. When I uttered that appalling, shameful lie, I thought I hated you for your tyranny. It was only when I had spent a night on the trail alone that I saw how mean and low I had fallen...."

"No----"

"Yes. The tyranny was all imaginary--I saw that. I could think of no act on your part that wasn't kind, or for my good. I came back to find you ill, sick unto death. It seemed it was some punishment on my head.... Oh, everything changed in those few days. If you had died I think I should have died too, though I didn't love you--then."

He gave vent to a low hiss of incomparable joy.

"And you do now?" he asked.

Her rapturous eyes were sufficient answer.

"It beats me," he muttered. "It clean gets me wondering that you can love a chap like me. Once I thought you could, but then I didn't know you as you are--say, you're sure about this, ain't you?"

She gave him a hug.

"I agree with Natalie, no woman could help loving you--eventually."

"Oh, she said that, did she?"

"Yes."

"Wal, I guess love comes easy to a woman like that."

"And you don't like the love that comes easy?"

He made a grimace.

"Nothin' good ever comes easy. All the best things have to be fought for, won by long suffering and ordeal."

They sat in silence for a time, the heart of each overburdened with intense happiness. A light breeze swept up the river, soughing through the thick woods on the nearer bank.

"It was on such a night as this, back in England, that I first told you I loved you," he said.

"You can speak of that now without regret?"

"Sure. It was the finest thing I ever did. I thought I was happy then, but now----"

The unfinished sentence conveyed all he meant to convey. She turned her head until her full red lips came near his.

"You kissed me then, Jim. Won't you kiss me now?"

She felt his great heart throbbing against her bosom as he made haste to fulfill the invitation. If he had dallied in his love-making he lingered in his kissing. The whole world seemed to slide into oblivion in that first pa.s.sionate love-kiss. She clung to him, wholly and eternally his, conscious of nothing but the close presence of the rough, strong man into whose adoring arms a kindly providence had thrown her.

"By G.o.d, I'll never let you go again!" he hissed.

"By G.o.d, I don't want to," she retorted, with a merry laugh.

"Over there's England," he cried, pointing away to the east.

"And over here's America--Colorado."

"Eh?"

"Are we not to have a honeymoon--we who were married but to-day?"

His eyes opened wide.

"You don't mean----?"

"I do. I want to spend it in your country, among your people, in the places that you love and will never forget. To me it is all the same, wherever we go--Paradise."

He took her head and pressed his cheek against hers.