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Updated: May 5, 2025
They had a harder job to pull me through than they did to save Merridy, for I'd given the baby all the water and hadn't slept or rested for many years, so it seemed. "The little one was playing around several days before I got back my reason. Meanwhile the party had moved North, taking us with them, and, as it happened, just missing a posse who were returning from the desert.
I rode through the streets of Mesa, where they lived, and past the lights of his big saloon, where I heard the sound of devil's revelry and a shrill-voiced woman singing a woman the like of which he had tried to make my Merridy. I never skulked or sneaked in those days, and no man ever made me take back roads, so I came up to his house from the front and tied my horse to his gate-post.
He read the inscription, "From Dan to Merridy," but had no realization of what it meant, for he glimpsed the milk-white flesh almost at his lips, and felt her breath stirring his hair, while the delicate scent of her person seemed to loose every strong emotion in him. She was so dainty and yet so virile, so innocent and yet so wise, so cold and yet so pulsating.
The old man stooped, and for the first time in her memory pressed his lips to hers, then went out into the sunlight, where he might be alone with himself and the memory of that other Merridy, the woman who, to him, was more than all the women of the world; the woman who, each day and night, came to him, and with whom he had kept faith.
"He lied!" "I can show you her wedding-ring I've always worn it." She fumbled for the chain about her neck, but it eluded her trembling fingers. "It has her name in it 'From Dan to Merridy." Stark's hand darted forward and tore the thing from her shoulders, then he thrust it under the lamp and glared at the inscription, while his fingers shook so that he could barely distinguish the words.
Then, after a moment, he added, "From the story I told you at the mine that night, I suppose?" "Oh no," she answered. "I've always had it, though they call me Necia. Merridy was my father's mother. I guess I'm like her in many ways, for I often imagine she is a part of me, that her spirit is mine. It's the only way I can account for the sights I see."
I knew you were a coward, but I didn't think you'd be afraid to own it to yourself. That thing must have lived with you." "Look here," said Stark, curiously, "do you really think I killed Merridy?" "I know it. A man who would strike a woman would kill her if he had the nerve." Stark had now mastered himself, and smiled. "My hate worked better than I thought.
I seem to have a memory, although it's hardly that, either it's more like a dream as if I were somebody else. Father says it is from reading too much." "A memory of what?" "It's too vague and tantalizing to tell what it is, except that I should be called Merridy." "Merridy? Why that?" "I'll show you. See."
She slipped her hand inside the shawl and drew from her breast a thin gold chain on which was strung a band ring. "It was grandmother's that's where I got the fancy for the name of Merridy, I suppose." "May I look?" "Of course. But I daren't take it off. I haven't had it off my neck since I was a baby."
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