304 THE LAW OF HEMLOCK MOUNTAIN
  "I didn't know," admitted Glory softly, "that I was
to meet you here. I didn't know that the fight was
to be between us."
  "You have ruined me," he answered. "I'm a sink-
ing ship now, and those rats out there will leave me
-but it's worth ruin to see you again. I want you to
take this message with you and remember it. All my
life I've gambled hard and fought hard. Now I
fail hard. I lost you and deserved to lose you, but
I've always loved you and always shall."
  Her eyes grew stern, repressing the tenderness and
pity that sought to hold them soft.
  "You abandoned me," she said. "You sought to
plunder my people. I took up their fight, and I shall
win it."
  Spurrier came a step toward her and spread his
hands in a gesture of surrender, but he had recovered
from the shock that had so unnerved him a few min-
utes ago and there was now a certain dignity in his
acceptance of defeat.
  "I break my sword across my knee," he declared,
"and since I must do it, I'm glad you are the victor.
I won't ask for mercy even from you-but when you
say I abandoned you, you are grievously wrong.
  "When you say I sought to plunder your people, you
speak the truth about me-as I was before I came to
love you. From that time on I sought to serve your
people. "
  "Sought to serve them" she repeated in perplex-
ity. "The record shows nothing of that."
  "And since the record doesn't," he answered stead-
ily, "any assertions and protestations would be with-