Duty

"Don't light the lamps, Marion," he said, sitting down on a counter-stool as he took off his hat. "I want to talk to you just a minute, if you don't mind. You know what has happened. I am called on now to go after Sinclair. I have tried to avoid it, but my hand has been forced. To-day I've been placing horses. I am going to ride to-night with the warrant. I have given him a start of twenty-four hours, hoping he may get out of the country. To stay here means only death to him in the end, and, what is worse, the killing of more and innocent men. But he won't leave the country; do you think he will?"

"Oh, I do not know! I am afraid he will not."

"I do not think I have ever hesitated before at any call of this kind; nor at what such a call will probably sometime mean; but this man I have known since we were boys."

"If I had never seen him!"

"That brings up another point that has been worrying me all day. I could not help knowing what you have had to go through in this country. It is a tough country for any woman. Your people and mine were always close together and I have felt bound to do what I could to----"

"Don't be afraid to say it--make my path easier."

"Something like that, though there's been little real doing. What this situation in which Sinclair is now placed may still mean to you I do not know, but I would not add a straw to the weight of your troubles. I came to-night to ask a plain question. If he doesn't leave the country I have got to meet him. You know what, in all human probability, that will mean. From such a meeting only one of us can come back. Which shall it be?"