She nodded complete intelligence.
"The provocation was very great," she said evenly. "Why didn't you do it, Tom?"
"Now you've cornered me: I don't know why I didn't. I had only to walk away and let him alone when the time came. The slag-spilling would have settled him. But I couldn't do it."
"Of course you couldn't," she agreed convincingly. "God wouldn't let you."
"He lets other men commit murder; one a day, or such a matter."
"Not one of those who have named His name, Tom—as you have."
He shook his head slowly. "I wish that appealed to me, as it ought. But it doesn't. Where is the proof?"
She rose from the piano seat and went to stand before him.
"Can you ask that, soberly and in earnest, after the wonderful experience you have had?"
"I have asked it," he insisted stubbornly. "You mustn't take anything for granted. Just at that moment I couldn't kill a man; but that is all the difference. I've done what I meant to do, or most of it."