For my part, I wondered that he had not come to such a conclusion before.

Not improbably the advent of his daughter had put Sampson in conflict with himself.
Suddenly he threw off a somber cast of countenance and began to talk.

He talked swiftly, persuasively, yet I imagined he was talking to smooth Wright's passion for the moment.

Wright no more caught the fateful significance of a line crossed, a limit reached, a decree decided, than if he had not been present.

He was obsessed with himself.
How, I wondered, had a man of his mind ever lived so long and gone so far among the exacting conditions of Pecos County?
The answer was perhaps, that Sampson had guided him, upheld him, protected him.