The afternoon and evening had been cloudy and the night was dark. She
was glad of that. As the horse went swiftly along she turned to look at
Hugh who sat up very stiffly on the buggy seat and stared straight ahead.
The long horse-like face of the Missourian with its huge nose and deeply
furrowed cheeks was ennobled by the soft darkness, and a tender feeling
crept over her. When he had asked her to become his wife, Clara had pounced
like a wild animal abroad seeking prey and the thing in her that was like
her father, hard, shrewd and quick-witted, had led her to decide to see the
thing through at once. Now she became ashamed, and her tender mood took the
hardness and shrewdness away. "This man and I have a thousand things we
should say to each other before we rush into marriage," she thought, and
was half inclined to turn the horse and drive back. She wondered if Hugh
had also heard the stories connecting her name with that of Buckley, the
stories she was sure were now running from lip to lip through the streets
of Bidwell, and what version of the tale had been carried to him. "Perhaps
he came to propose marriage in order to protect me," she thought, and
decided that if he had come for that reason she was taking an unfair
advantage. "It is what Kate Chanceller would call 'doing the man a dirty,
low-down trick,'" she told herself; but even as the thought came she leaned
forward and touching the horse with the whip urged him even more swiftly
along the road.
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