“No need for us to take up old quarrels, Agnes,” he chided with a show of gentleness.
“I don’t want to quarrel with you, Jerry; I never did quarrel with you,” she disclaimed.
“‘Misunderstandings’ would be a better word then, I suppose,” he corrected. “But you could have 220 knocked me over with a feather when you repudiated me over there at Comanche that day. I suppose I should have known that you were under an alias before I made that break, but I didn’t know it, Agnes, believe me.”
“How could you?” she said, irritably. “That was nothing; let it rest. But you understand that it was for the sake of others that the alias was–and is–used; not for my own.”
“Of course, Agnes. But what do you want to be wasting yourself on this rough country for? There are more suitable places in Wyoming for you than this lonesome spot. What’s the object, anyhow?”
“I am building here the City of Refuge,” said she, “and its solitude will be its walls.”
“Ready for the time when he comes back, I suppose?”
She nodded assent slowly, as if grudging him that share of the knowledge of her inner life.
“Poor old kid, you’ve got a job ahead of you!” he commiserated.
A resentful flush crept into her face, but she turned aside, gathering her sticks as if to hide her displeasure. Boyle laughed.