“I'm not doing much of that sort at this moment, any way!” rejoined Wingfold with a laugh.
“You know this is not the place for it!”
“Would you mind telling me which is the place to read a French novel in?”
“Church: there!”
“What would you do if I were to insist on reading a chapter of the Bible here?”
“Look!” she answered, and rising, snatched a saloon-pistol from the chimney-piece, and took deliberate aim at him.
Wingfold looked straight down the throat of the thick barrel, and did not budge.
“—I would shoot you with that,” she went on, holding the weapon as I have said. “It would kill you, for I can shoot, and should hit you in the eye, not on the head. I shouldn't mind being hanged for it. Nothing matters now!”
She flung the heavy weapon from her, gave a great cry, not like an hysterical woman, but an enraged animal, stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth, pulled it out again, and began tearing at it with her teeth. The pistol fell in the middle of the room. Wingfold went and picked it up.
“I should deserve it if I did,” he said quietly, as he laid the pistol on the table. “—But you don't fight fair, Mrs. Wylder; for you know I can't take a pistol with me into the pulpit and shoot you. It is cowardly of you to take advantage of that.”