I wondered that long before I had not associated wealth and luxury with her family.

Always I had owned a weakness for plantations, for the agricultural life with its open air and freedom from towns.
I saw myself riding through the cotton and rice and cane, home to the stately old mansion, where long-eared hounds bayed me welcome and a woman looked for me and met me with happy and beautiful smiles.

There might--there _would_ be children.

And something new, strange, confounding with its emotion, came to life deep in my heart.

There would be children! Sally their mother; I their father! The kind of life a lonely Ranger always yearned for and never had! I saw it all, felt it keenly, lived its sweetness in an hour of temptation that made me weak physically and my spirit faint and low.
For what had I turned my back on this beautiful, all-satisfying prospect?
Was it to arrest and jail a few rustlers?
Was it to meet that mocking Sampson face to face and show him my shield and reach for my gun?
Was it to kill that hated Wright?
Was it to save the people of Linrock from further greed, raids, murder?
Was it to please and aid my old captain, Neal of the Rangers?
Was it to save the Service to the State?
No--a thousand times no.