“You must have thought I meant to raid your house. I didn’t. I was hit. I got mixed up in trying to get away. You want me out of here?”
“Very much.”
“No more than I want to get out. Perhaps by to-morrow I could walk a few miles. I should have to assassinate somebody to get some ammunition.”
“It wouldn’t be hard for you to do that, I presume.”
Her words and her tone revealed the intensity of her dislike and the depth of her distrust.
He was silent for a moment. Then he said, without resentment: “You are ashamed already of saying that, aren’t you?”
“No, I am not,” she answered defiantly.
“Yes, you are. You know it isn’t true. If you believed it you never would have brought food here to save my life.”
“I brought it to save some of my own people from possible death at your hands––to prevent another fight––to see if you hadn’t manhood enough after being helped, to go away, when you were able to move, peaceably. One cartridge might mean one life, dear to me.”