“You must have wondered what I was doing up there,” she said, with a backward nod of her head.
“That would not be strange, would it?”
“I will tell you.”
“No,” he said. “It is bad enough that you went there to-day and the Saturday before I was arrested. Anything more that you could tell me would only make it worse. Do you remember that girl I told you about—that friend of Cousin William—who visited us?”
“Yes.”
“I followed you up here to-day to tell you the same thing I told her.”
“I understand,” she said.
“You do not understand,” he snapped, almost angrily. “You understand nothing. I only said that I followed to tell you that. I have not told you, have I? Well, I don’t intend to tell you; but my shame that I don’t is enough without you telling me any more to add to it. There can be no honorable excuse for your having come here that other time, or this time, either. There is no reason in the world why a woman should have any dealings with criminals, or any knowledge that would make dealings with them possible. That is the reason I don’t want you to tell me more. Oh, Shannon”—his voice broke—“I don’t want to hear anything bad about you!... Please!”
She had been upon the verge of just anger until then. Even now she did not understand—only that he wanted to believe in her, however much he doubted her, and that their friendship had meant more to him than she had imagined.
“But I must tell you, Custer,” she insisted. “Now that you have learned this much, I can see that your suspicions wrong me more than I deserve. I came here the Saturday before you were arrested to warn them that you were going to watch for them on the following Friday. Though I did not know the men, I knew what sort they were, and that they would kill you the moment they found that they were discovered. It was only to save your life that I came that other time, and this time I came to try to force them to go before the grand jury and clear you of the charge against you; but when I threatened the man, and he found what I knew about him, he said that he would kill me.”