Part 2

Nellie rose willingly enough, but the old woman said scornfully, “Nell, Nell, she ain’t got no luck at all. Three times I tried her fortune, and three times it came, ‘tears, tears, tears’--never naught else for Nell but tears.”

“Never mind, mother, better luck this time, eh, Nell?” and the girl took the cards, and smiled trustingly up into his face.

“Cut, Nell.”

She cut the nine of spades, and the old woman groaned. “Disaster, sure as fate; let Macartney’s mob alone, I tell you.”

“Cut again, Nell.”

She shuffled them carefully, the other four watching her with eager, anxious eyes, while the man at her side looked on with tolerant scorn. And then she cut--the ace of spades. Her grandmother threw up her hands. “Death, I tell you--death--death--death--an’ no less.”

Gentleman Jim struck the cards out of her hand roughly, and they went flying to all corners of the hut.

“Come outside, Nell--come down to the waterhole, it’s cool there, and better fun than listening to an old woman’s twaddle. The sun’s down now. Come on.”

She looked at her grandmother first, partly from habit, but the old woman was still wringing her hands over the danger foretold by the cards, and was blind for the moment to that right under her eyes. So Nellie followed him gladly, only too gladly, down the steep bank to the waterhole. He pushed her down somewhat roughly under the shadow of the western bank, and then flung himself down on the ground beside her, and put his head in her lap. With her little work-hardened hand, she smoothed back his black hair, and he looked up into her face.

“So you love me, Nellie?” he said, somewhat abruptly. “You be sure you love me?”

It was hardly a question, he was too certain of it, and no man should be certain of a woman’s love.

She made no answer in words, but the pretty blue eyes smiled down at him so confidingly, that for a moment the man was smitten with remorse. What good would this love ever do her?

“You poor child!” he said. “You poor little girl. I believe you do. Don’t do it, Nellie--don’t be such a fool.”

“Why?” she asked simply.

“Why? Because I shall do you no good.”

“But I love you,” she whimpered, “an’ you won’t harm me.”

“No, by ---- I won’t.” And for the moment perhaps he meant to keep his oath, for he half rose, as if there and then he would have left her. Perhaps it was too much to expect--all his companions feared him, the outside world hunted him, only this woman believed in him and loved him; and if it is a great thing to be loved, it is a still greater thing to be believed in and trusted. And so when she put her arms around him and drew him back he yielded.

“It is your own fault, Nell, your own fault--don’t blame me.”

“No,” she said, satisfied because he had stayed. “I won’t--never.” Then she ran her fingers through his hair again.

“I saw a gray hair in the sunshine,” she said.

“A gray hair--a dozen--a hundred. My life is calculated to raise a few gray hairs.”

“But why--?”

“Why? Why--once on the downward path you can’t stop, my dear. However the path has led me to your arms, so common politeness should make me commend the road by which I came.”

“You are always good.”

“Good! great Heavens! No--only a silly girl would think that. Was I ever good? I’m sure I don’t know. If I was a woman soon knocked it out of me.”

“A woman! Did you love her?”

“Love her--of course I loved her.”

“More ‘n you do me?”