"But I'm neither so independent nor so strong—nor is Evie. You don't consider her."
"I don't have to consider any one. When I make Evie happy I do all that can be asked of me."
"No, you would be called on to keep her happy. And she couldn't remain happy if she were married to you. It isn't possible. She couldn't live with you any more than—than a humming-bird could live with a hawk."
They both smiled, rather nervously.
"But I'm not a hawk," he insisted. "I'm much more a humming-bird than you imagine. You think me some sort of creature of prey because you believe—that I did—what I was accused of—"
The circumstances seemed so far off from him now, so incongruous with what he had become, that he reverted to them with difficulty.
"I don't attach any importance to that," she said, with a tranquillity that startled him. "I suppose I ought to, but I never have. If you killed your uncle, it seems to me—very natural. He provoked you. He deserved it. My father would have done it certainly."
"But I didn't, you see. That puts another color on the case."
"It doesn't for me. And it doesn't, as it affects Evie. Whether you're innocent or guilty—and I don't say I think you to be guilty—I've never thought much about it—but whether you're guilty or not, your life is the kind of tragedy Evie couldn't share. It would kill her."
"It wouldn't kill her, if she didn't know anything about it."