"He deserves a jolly good hiding," said Edward, "and I've a jolly good mind to give it to him."
"Let him off this time," she said, "it was so clever of him to find me out. He hadn't hurt any of the sheep, had he?"
"No," said he, "but he might have."
"Oh, if we come to might-have-beens," said she, "I might not be here, he might not be here. We all might not be here. Think of that. No, don't look at him with that 'wait-till-I-get-you-home' expression. Forgive him and be done with it."
And when she looked at him like that, as he told himself, what could he do but forgive the dog?
"Why," he said, "of course I'll forgive him!" adding, with one of those diabolical flashes of insight to which our subconscious selves are sometimes liable. "Why, I'd forgive Schultz himself if you asked me like that."
"It isn't Mr. Schultz I want you to forgive," she said, "it's Charles—Charles that I love."
"Not Schultz whom you like."
"I hate Schultz," said she, so vehemently that he wondered. Because always before she had defended the man and called him kind and helpful. It was, however, so pleasant to him that she should hate Schultz that he put his wonder by to taste that pleasure.