He slipped back against
her almost immediately, and this time he had not the strength with
which to apologize nor lift himself erect. With his head heavy in the
hollow of her arm, they came at length to the open pasture hills; they
topped the rise and faced the loops on loops of highway that ran down
to Morrison at the river-edge. And so she brought him home. At the
sight of his "city" she sobbed aloud, but he, sunken and slack, was
conscious neither of distance covered nor change of country. He
climbed down from the seat, however, in response to her urgings, when
the team halted before Caleb Hunter's white-columned house--he turned
and started stubbornly back the way they had come.
She ran after him and clung to his arm.
"You promised that you would come back to me," she cried up at him.
"Oh, you cannot leave me now!"
That halted him, momentarily.
"I must go back to my bridge," he explained, plainly nonplussed. "But
then I'll surely come back to you."
She pleaded with him--raged at him.
"I must go back to my bridge," he reiterated gruffly now.
Her arms went around him in desperation, and then, with one swing, he
had swept her yards away, reeling before his blazing wrath.
"Take your fingers from my eyes, Harrigan," he gasped in sudden agony.
"I am going to kill you now--and _she_ is looking on!"
The girl was afraid of him; she dared not try to hold him.
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