He turned now, and slowly questioned her with his eyes.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't want you to know about Tusk, and when you took me by surprise that way, I reckon I acted rough! Who'd a-thought we were born enemies!—an' after all you've done to help me! But I tried, Gawd knows I tried, to pay the debt!"
A wave of pity thrilled her, but her voice was proportionately accusing as she said:
"All you've tried can not atone for what you did."
"I know," he buried his face in his hands. "That was ignorance, an' I'm payin' for it by havin' you turn away an' snap my future like a fiddle string! Oh, how could my hand a-struck yoh people—even in black ignorance!"
Her mental claws, which had bared at the approach of this interview, now softly began to find their padded coverings. The anxious anticipation which had armed her against an untested foe, now left but a sympathy straining to take possession; because her instinct said there was to be no resisting force, and the crushed attitude of the man before her plainly told that she was still the unlowered, the unapproachable being in his eyes. With her pride unhurt, her belligerency was unessential. For a moment more she continued to let him suffer. She might have relieved it now—she even wanted to—but the old savage spirit was still unappeased, and a devil of the feud days made her ask:
"Where are you going, and what are you intending to make of your life?"
She might have expected some outburst as a result of this, for she shrank slightly back; but he did not move. He seemed too crushed, and pressed his hands more violently against his face, murmuring from the depths of inordinate suffering:
"Oh, Gawd! That you an' I should be enemies!—that we were born to be enemies!"
"Yes, I know," she faltered, looking away; for the sight of his grief had conquered. "It's hard to believe—wretchedly hard—that you and I should have been born to hate and destroy each other;—and that you, with the hand I've so patiently taught to write, killed—him!" He groaned. "But, Dale," she stepped closer, "I've just been facing facts, and believe that our strong wills can adjust it all;—that through our old feud may come a truer understanding, a surer sympathy, than enters often into this comedie humaine. Those are the real things which make life worth while; not inherited hatreds because our ancestors were at war! It may be hard to forgive, furiously hard; but certainly it is wrong to keep such ghastly things alive! The world is such a wide marvel of the beautiful out-of-doors to wander in!—there is so much to do and learn and see and be!—so much to read and think about and live for!—so much of the glories of life—that surely you and I can be given the boon of forgetfulness and the bounty of friendship! Go back to the house, pick up the book I threw away, and look at the last line you read!—then rub your eyes, and pretend you've just awakened from an ugly dream!"