She was half teasing now, but teasing through the visor, not over the wall.
"And if I sought victory I saw that I was being beaten while I made a profession of you, not of gardening! Yes, of you! I could confess it to all the world and its ridicule!"
"Jack, you are dramatic!"
If she would only once look at him! If he could only speak into her eyes!
If her breaths did not come and go so regularly!
"Why did I take to the trail after Pedro Nogales struck at me with his knife? Because I saw the look on your face when you saw that I had broken his arm. I had not meant to break his arm—yet I know that I might have done worse but for you! I did not mean to kill Leddy—yet there was something in me which might have killed him but for you!"
"I am glad to have prevented murder!" she answered almost harshly.
A shadow of horror, as if in recollection of the scene in the arroyo and beside the hedge, passed over her face.
"Yes, I understand! I understand!" he said. "And you must hear why this terrible impulse rose in me."
"I know."
"You know? You know?" he repeated.