“They ain’t any reason—­just plain fool woman, that’s all.”

“But maybe she didn’t love you, Cartwright.  Did you ever think of that?”

The big man stared.  “Not love me?  Who would she love, then?  Was they anybody in them parts that could bring her as much as I could?  Was they anybody that had as good a house as mine, or as much land, or as much cattle?  Didn’t I take her over the ground and show her what it amounted to?  Didn’t I offer her her pick of my own string of riding horses?”

“Did you do as much as that?”

“Sure I did.  She wouldn’t have lacked for nothing.”

“You sure must have loved her a lot,” insinuated Sinclair.  “Must have been plumb foolish about her.”

“Oh, I dunno about that.  Love is one thing that ain’t bothered me none.  I got important interests, Sinclair.  I’m a business man.  And this here marriage was a business proposition.  Her dad was a business man, and he fixed it all up for us.  It was to tie the two biggest bunches of land together that could be found in them parts.  Anyway”—­he grinned—­“I got the land!”

“And why not let the girl go, then?”

“Why?” asked Cartwright eagerly.  “Who wants her?  You?”

“Maybe, if you’d let her go.”

“Not in a thousand years!  She’s mine.  They ain’t no face but hers that I can see opposite to me at the table—­not one!  Besides, she’s mine, and I’m going to keep her—­after I’ve taught her a lesson or two!”

Sinclair wiped his forehead hastily.  Eagerness to jump at the throat of the man consumed him.  He forced a smile on his thin lips and persistently looked down.

“But think how easy it’d be, Cartwright.  Think how easy you could get a divorce on the grounds of desertion.”

“And drag all this shame into the courts?”

“They’s ways of hushing these here things up.  It’d be easy.  She wouldn’t put up no defense, mostlike.  You’d win your case.  And if anybody asked questions, they’d simply say she was crazy, and that you was lucky to get rid of her.  They wouldn’t blame you none.  And it wouldn’t be no disgrace to be deserted by a crazy woman, would it?”

Cartwright drew back into a shell of opposition.  “You talk pretty hot for this.”

“Because I’m telling you the way out for both of you.”

“I can’t see it.  She’s coming back to me.  Nobody else is going to get her.  I’ve set my mind on it!”

“Partner, don’t you see that neither of you could ever be happy?”

“Oh, we’d be happy enough.  I’d forgive her—­after a while.”

“Yes, but what about her?”

“About her?  Why, curse her, what right has she got to be considered?”

“Cartwright, she doesn’t love you.”

The bulldog came into the face of Cartwright and contorted it.  “Don’t she belong to me by law?  Ain’t she sworn to—­”

“Don’t” said Sinclair, as if the words strangled him.  “Don’t say that, Cartwright, if you please!”