“Ye 'lowed ter me ez ye never keered nuthin' fur that man, Renfrow,” he said with a plaintive appeal, far more powerful with her than scorn.
She looked up at him with candid reassuring eyes. “I never keered none fur him,” she protested. “He kem hyar all shot up, with the miners an' mounting boys hot foot arter him—an' we done what we could fur him. Gran'daddy 'lowed ez he warn't 'spon-sible fur whut the owners done, or hedn't done at the mine, an' he seen no sense in shootin' one man ter git even with another.”
“But ye kep' his secret!” Kinnicutt persisted.
“What fur should I tell it—'t ain't mine?”
“That thar money in that box he buried ain't his'n, nuther!” he argued.
There was an inscrutable look in her clear eyes. She had risen, and was standing in the moonlight opposite him. The shadows of the vines falling over her straight skirt left her face and hair the fairer in the silver glister.
“'Pears like ter me,” he broke the silence with his plaintive cadence, “ez ye ought ter hev tole me. I ain't keerin' ter know 'ceptin' ye hev shet me out. It hev hurt my feelin's powerful ter be treated that-a-way. Tell me now—or lemme go forever!”
She was suddenly trembling from head to foot. Pale she was always. Now she was ghastly. “Rufe Kinnicutt,” she said with the solemnity of an adjuration, “ye don't keer fur sech ez this, fur nuthin'. An' I promised!”
He noted her agitation. He felt the clue in his grasp. He sought to wield his power, “Choose a-twixt us! Choose a-twixt the promise ye made ter that man—or the word ye deny ter me! An' when I'm gone—I'm gone!”
She stood seemingly irresolute.