'It would have made my duty so much harder to do,' he explained.
With a little cry of irritation Clarice slipped her foot from the fender and moved from him back to the couch. She had given him the opportunity to escape from his position and he refused to make use of it; he seemed indeed unable to perceive it. However, she clung to it obstinately and repeated it.
'You could not know there was anything between us'; she emphasised the words deliberately. Drake mistook the intention of the emphasis.
'But was there,' he exclaimed, 'at the time? I didn't think of that, Miss
Le Mesurier—'
'Oh no, no!' she interrupted. 'Not at the time.' The man was impracticable, and yet his very impracticability aroused in a measure her admiration. 'So you would have shot him just the same, had you known?'
'Shot him?' asked Drake almost absently.
'Yes.'
'Didn't I tell you? I beg your pardon. I didn't shoot him at all. I hanged him.'
Clarice was stunned by the words, and the more because of the dull, seemingly callous accent with which they were spoken.
'You hanged him!' she whispered, dropping the words one by one, as though she was striving to weigh them.