Part 38

"You must not!" says she. "Go away!"

"I'll not," says he. "I can't help it! I tell you I can't help it."

Me being foreman, I reached around now to get hold of a brick or something. I couldn't help hearing what they said.

He'd been ordered off; yet here he was talking to Bonnie!

THE COMMANDMENT THAT WAS BROKE

I stood close up to the boathouse door and was going to step out, but what the hired man was saying to Bonnie Bell was so nervy I had to stop. Besides, I wanted to hear what she'd say to show him his place.

"From the first minute I saw you," says he, "I couldn't help it. I swore then I'd meet you some day, and sometime----"

"Is this the way?" I heard her say, low.

"It's the only way I have," says he. "If there was a better, don't you think I'd take it? But what chance did I have? I had to make some way; I wouldn't of been any sort of man if I hadn't."

She must just of stood looking at him. I couldn't see.

"I had to find some way to tell you," says he. "What part have I had in this foolish squabble? Was that my fault? I'm only a servant now; but give me a chance to break out of that. Why, when I was out West----"

"Were you out West?" says she, sudden.

"Yes; in the Yellow Bull Valley, among the cowmen--among the real people. You came from that valley yourself."

"Yes, we did," says she; "and we'd far better of stayed there."

"You couldn't of stayed there," says he. "And besides, if you'd stayed there I'd never of met you, or you me."

"Indeed! Was that all my fortune--to meet the servant of my father's enemy?"

"It's all of mine! I'm not your enemy. But suppose now I went to your father and told him--what would he do?"

"He'd maybe kill you," says Bonnie Bell simply; "or else Curly would."

"I wouldn't blame either of them," says he. "I don't want to sneak around. I'm going away again----"

"What made you come back?" she says.

"Because I was sick in my heart. Because I thought I could look over once in a while and see you. But when I came back, here was this cursed fence and I couldn't see you any more. I thought I'd go mad. Maybe I have; I don't know."

"With or without the fence," says Bonnie Bell, "how could our circles cross, yours and mine?"

"Circles!" says he. "Circles! What are circles? I've heard this talk of circles all my life," says he. "I've seen it going on all around me. It's rot--rot! It's my misfortune to find one so far above me."

"My money?" says she, scornful. "I've a lot of it."

He didn't say a word to that for a long time.

"Did you really think that of me for a minute?" says he at last.

"You take it for granted that I've thought of you at all?" says she.

"I wouldn't of dared," says he--and it sounded like the truth, through the door. "Don't class me that way!"