XIV: ’Twixt Love and Duty explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Love and Sacrifice

  Barbara risks her life crossing a dangerous river at night to save Billy Byrne, driven by love.

• Cowardice vs. Courage

  Barbara overcomes her terror of the wildcat and the treacherous river, showing immense courage.

Characters to notice

• Barbara Harding

  Paces the veranda, battles pride and love, decides to save Billy Byrne, crosses the river at night to find Brazos.

• Billy Byrne

  Prisoner awaiting execution; Barbara risks her life to save him.

• Eddie Shorter

  Dozing at his post in the office, guarding the prisoner.

• Brazos

  Barbara's gentle pony; she searches for him in the pasture and eventually catches him.

• José

  Reveals to Billy that men are coming to take the señorita that night, not for Grayson.

• Grayson

  Mentioned as the one who paid for men to take Barbara, but José indicates the men have their own plans.

Key passages

• “For an hour Barbara Harding paced the veranda of the ranchhouse, pride and love battling for the ascendency within her breast.”

  Barbara Harding walked back and forth on the veranda for an hour, torn between her pride and her love.

  Opening lines showing Barbara's internal conflict.

• “She could not let him die, that she knew; but how might she save him?”

  She knew she couldn't allow him to be killed, but she didn't know how to rescue him.

  Barbara's determination to save Billy despite uncertainty.

• “Again and again she was swept under by the force of the current. Again and again she rose and battled, not for her own life; but for the life of the man she once had loathed and whom she later had come to love.”

  The current repeatedly pulled her under, but she kept fighting to survive, not for herself but for the man she had once hated and now loved.

  Barbara's struggle in the river, motivated by love.