"I tried to make you see beauty in me and be softened by it. I wanted you to care for me so that I could influence you. It wasn't easy. At first you were stone-blind. Then I hoped you'd love little Fay, and through that come to feel the horror of ****** children fatherless."
"Jane Withersteen, either you're a fool or noble beyond my understandin'. Mebbe you're both. I know you're blind. What you meant is one thing--what you did was to make me love you."
"Lassiter!"
"I reckon I'm a human bein', though I never loved any one but my sister, Milly Erne. That was long--"
"Oh, are you Milly's brother?"
"Yes, I was, an' I loved her. There never was any one but her in my life till now. Didn't I tell you that long ago I back-trailed myself from women? I was a Texas ranger till--till Milly left home, an' then I became somethin' else--Lassiter! For years I've been a lonely man set on one thing. I came here an' met you. An' now I'm not the man I was. The change was gradual, an' I took no notice of it. I understand now that never-satisfied longin' to see you, listen to you, watch you, feel you near me. It's plain now why you were never out of my thoughts. I've had no thoughts but of you. I've lived an' breathed for you. An' now when I know what it means--what you've done--I'm burnin' up with hell's fire!"
"Oh, Lassiter--no--no--you don't love me that way!" Jane cased.
"If that's what love is, then I do."
"Forgive me! I didn't mean to make you love me like that. Oh, what a tangle of our lives! You--Milly Erne's brother! And I--heedless, mad to melt your heart toward Mormons. Lassiter, I may be wicked but not wicked enough to hate. If I couldn't hate Tull, could I hate you?"
"After all, Jane, mebbe you're only blind--Mormon blind. That only can explain what's close to selfishness--"
"I'm not selfish. I despise the very word. If I were free--"
"But you're not free. Not free of Mormonism. An' in playin' this game with me you've been unfaithful."
"Unfaithful!" faltered Jane.
"Yes, I said unfaithful. You're faithful to your Bishop an' unfaithful to yourself. You're false to your womanhood an' true to your religion. But for a savin' innocence you'd have made yourself low an' vile-- betrayin' yourself, betrayin' me--all to bind my hands an' keep me from snuffin' out Mormon life. It's your damned Mormon blindness."
"Is it vile--is it blind--is it only Mormonism to save human life? No, Lassiter, that's God's law, divine, universal for all Christians."
"The blindness I mean is blindness that keeps you from seein' the truth. I've known many good Mormons. But some are blacker than hell. You won't see that even when you know it. Else, why all this blind passion to save the life of that--that...."
Jane shut out the light, and the hands she held over her eyes trembled and quivered against her face.
"Blind--yes, en' let me make it clear en' ****** to you,"
Lassiter went on, his voice losing its tone of anger. "Take, for instance, that idea of yours last night when you wanted my guns.
It was good an' beautiful, an' showed your heart--but--why, Jane, it was crazy. Mind I'm assumin' that life to me is as sweet as to any other man. An' to preserve that life is each man's first an' closest thought. Where would any man be on this border without guns? Where, especially, would Lassiter be? Well, I'd be under the sage with thousands of other men now livin' an' sure better men than me. Gun-packin' in the West since the Civil War has growed into a kind of moral law. An' out here on this border it's the difference between a man an' somethin' not a man. Look what your takin' Venters's guns from him all but made him! Why, your churchmen carry guns. Tull has killed a man an' drawed on others.
Your Bishop has shot a half dozen men, an' it wasn't through prayers of his that they recovered. An' to-day he'd have shot me if he'd been quick enough on the draw. Could I walk or ride down into Cottonwoods without my guns? This is a wild time, Jane Withersteen, this year of our Lord eighteen seventy- one."
"No time--for a woman!" exclaimed Jane, brokenly. "Oh, Lassiter, I feel helpless--lost--and don't know where to turn. If I am blind--then--I need some one--a friend--you, Lassiter--more than ever!"
"Well, I didn't say nothin' about goin' back on you, did I?"