"If you are happy, I am satisfied."
It was briefly spoken, but it went straight to her heart. She clung to
him for a moment without words, and that was all the thanks she ever
offered him. For there was nothing to be said.
* * * * *
Very late on the evening of that wonderful day she sat with Bill Warden
on the edge of a rock overlooking a fertile valley of many waters in the
Blue Mountains, and heard, with her hand in his the amazing story of the
past few days, which had seemed to her so curiously dream-like.
"I fought hard against marrying you," Bill told her, with the smile she
had remembered for so long. "But he had me at every turn--simply rolled
me out and wiped the ground with me. Said he'd clap me into prison if I
didn't, and when I said 'All right' to that, he turned on me like a tiger
and asked if I wanted to break your heart. Oh, he made me feel a
ten-times swab, I can tell you. And when I said I didn't want you to
marry an uncaught criminal, he just looked me over and said, 'You've sown
your wild oats. As your partner, I am sponsor for your respectability.' I
knew what that meant, knew he'd stand by me through thick and thin,
whatever turned up. It was the official seal with a vengeance, for what
Fletcher Hill says goes in these parts. But it went against the grain,
little new chum. It made me sick with myself.
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