"You wretch!" panted the girl, who was now pale as snow. "You murderer!"
The man was dazzled by her beauty. Immediately he moved back from the window, bowing low.
"Beg your pardon, miss," he said. "He sure is an enemy of mine, and out here we shoots on sight. But mebbe he is your friend, in which case I lets up and gives him another show."
In that moment of excitement he had fallen into the frontier manner of speaking.
She looked at him with unspeakable horror in her eyes.
"What are you doing here?" she panted. "You—you—murderer! Mother—this man—why is he here?"
But Mrs. Arlington, usually cold as ice and perfectly self-possessed, had quite lost her nerve. She sank into a chair, seeming on the verge of fainting, while she gave Bill a look that, ruffian though he was, he understood as an appeal to be left alone with June.
Nor was he loath about getting out of that room. His pistol had been discharged from the window, and, though the bullet had found no human target, men might come in haste to ask unpleasant questions.
"I begs your pardon, madam," he said, hurriedly picking up his hat. "I thinks I'll call again and finish this yere bit o' business. Just now I has another matter to attend to."