Whispering Smith
up. I won’t leave without you.” He leaned with one hand against the ribbon showcase. “If you don’t want to go I will stay right here and pay off the scores I owe. Two men here have stirred this country up too long, anyway. I don’t care much how soon anybody gets me after I round them up. But to-night I felt like this: you and I started out in life together, and we ought to live it out or die together, whether it’s to-night, Marion, or twenty years from to-night.”
“If you want to kill me to-night, I have no resistance to make.”
Sinclair sat down on a low counter-stool, and, bending forward, held his head between his hands. “It oughtn’t all to end here. I know you, and I know you want to do what’s right. I couldn’t kill you without killing myself; you know that.” He straightened up slowly. “Here!” He slipped his revolver from his hip-holster and held the grip of the gun toward her. “Use it on me if you want to. It is your chance to end everything; it may save several lives if you do. I won’t leave McCloud here to crow over me, and, by God, I won’t leave you here for Whispering Smith! I’ll settle with him anyhow. Take the pistol! What are you afraid of? Take it! Use it! I don’t want to live without you. If you make me do it, you’re to blame for the consequences.”
330
