"What have you been waiting for all this time?
A myth, an illusion, that can never come true! You've no right to spoil your own life and someone else's as well for such a reason as that.

I call that wrong--if you like." She hid her face against him with a piteous gesture.

"He--said he would come back, Jack." Jack frowned over her bowed head even while he softly stroked it.

"And if he had--do you think I would ever have let you go to him?
A cattle thief, Dot! An outlaw!" She clung to him trembling.

"He saved my life--at the risk of his own," she whispered, almost inarticulately.
"Oh, I know--I know.