Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 106: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

96 ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. “ Virginia,” he said. “I am sorry. It wouldn’t have happened if I could have avoided it.” ‘Then you know?” she exclaimed, sur- prised, “Dr. Mills told me,” he replied. “‘ He felt I ought to know. Nobody else knows —or will.” ““T think it would kill him if they knew,” she declared. ‘“ J—I didn’t know until— until we got-into the house. And then he showed me his shirt, where—’ She shud- dered, covered her face with her hands. ‘““T know you aren’t to blame,” she said presently, looking at him, steady-eyed, in a way that reminded him of Ballantine. “T’ve known all along that you couldn’t do different. have it no other way.” She opened the door and came out upon the porch softly, peering backward into the kitchen, and closing the door silently. “He is lying in there with his eyes closed,” she said. ‘‘ He isn’t asleep; he is thinking. He never sleeps, it seems,” she added. ‘‘ At any time of the day or night, whenever I go near him, he seems to know it. He is thinking, now; and I hope he will be able to see that there is no use quar- reling any more.” She stood, with her back against the wall near the door, staring down at the porch floor. She was marvelously cool. Her voice was steady. “J want to thank you for not—for not doing as you might have done,” she said. “ Joe Gibson told me how you shot that man who came here to bother that girl you brought from Denver, and I know what you might easily have done if you had wanted to.” Cameron had seen the faint tinge of red that had surged into her cheeks when she had mentioned Miss Fargo, and he had not failed to understand the slight emphasis Virginia had placed upon the words “ you brought.” ‘Miss Fargo has been working for me for more than six years,’ Cameron ex- plained. ‘I keep her because she attends strictly to business. There is no nonsense about her.” ‘“ Why are you telling me this, Mr. Cam- There -was no other way; he’d - eron?” asked Virginia. She was looking straight at him now, and her head was rais J proudly. ‘ Because I don’t want you to misinter- pret the significance of what happened,” returned Cameron. “Why should you think F would misin- terpret what happened, Mr. Cameron?” Virginia demanded steadily. ‘I have no interest whatever in Miss Fargo. And I think I have none in you. You are rather pressing a point when you intimate that I might have.” “In spite of what you said some time ago—on the day you and uncle had that talk about your railroad—I believe I have given you no grounds to think that I could ever think of you as anything more than a man who came here to make trouble for myself and my uncle. And now that you have shot him, and have done all you can to make things miserable for me, don’t you think you ought to let us alone?” She paused and glanced downward, and Cam- eron saw a wave of color mount her white threat and flow slowly into her cheeks. “On the contrary, Virginia, I intend to stay here and show you that I am not what you think I am.” She did not look up as she replied: “You will have a hard time convincing uncle that you are anything but a man who. tried to kill him,” she declared. “ He will always think you did your best, even though I believe you were forced to do as you did and were very merciful.” “And still you show me no mercy,” Cameron pointed out. “You are not looking for mercy, Mr. Cameron,” she returned; “ you are after results in your business. You would go ahead with your enterprises if you knew that as a result half the people in this sec- tion of the country would suffer. “You represent an element which will not let anything stand in its way. You would ride over any obstacle that should happen to get in your way. You have no . regard or consideration for the feelings of other people. ‘““What counts with you and your kind iS success in what you undertake, in the money you make, Money means more to 6A oO CORMIG OOOKSseCO q