"You overrate the matter altogether, Bertha. The man shot me by mistake. The fellow he took me for richly deserved shooting. When he found it was a mistake, the poor fellow was bitterly sorry for it. Surely, there was nothing more to be said about it."
The girl sat silent for some time.
"Well, it is all cleared up now," she said at last. "There is no reason why we should not be friends as of old."
"None whatever," he said. "There has been only—" and he stopped short.
"Only what, Frank?"
"Nothing," he said. "We will be just as we were, Bertha. I will try and be the good elder brother, and scold you and look after you, and warn you, if it should be necessary, until you get under other guidance."
"It will be some time," she said, quietly, "before that happens. I have had a sharp lesson."
"And did you really care for him much, Bertha?"
"I don't think that I really cared for him at all," she said. "That is not the lesson that I was thinking of."
He saw the colour mount into her cheeks as she twisted the handkerchief she held into a knot. Then, turning to him, she said: