“Agnes, I told you yesterday that I was all over the old feeling that I had for you.”
Boyle leaned forward as he spoke, his voice earnest and low.
“But that was a bluff. I’m just as big a fool as I ever was about it. If you want to walk over me, go ahead; if you want to–oh, rats! But I’ll tell you; if you’ll come away with me I’ll drop all of this. I’ll leave that tin-horn doctor where he is, and let him make what he can out of his claim.”
“I couldn’t marry you, Jerry; it’s impossible to think of that,” she told him gently.
“Oh, well, that’s a formality,” he returned, far more in his voice than his words. “I’ll say to you––”
“You’ve said too much!” she stopped him, feeling 251 her cheeks burn under the outrage which he had offered to her chaste heart. “There’s no room for any more words between you and me–never! Go now–say no more!”
She walked across the bright ring of light toward the tent, making a little detour around him, as if afraid that his violent words might be followed by violent deeds.
Boyle turned where he stood, following her with his eyes. The light of the lantern struck him strongly up to the waist, leaving his head and shoulders in the gloom above its glare. His hands were in the pockets of his trousers, his shoulders drooping forward in that horseback stoop which years in the saddle had fastened on him.
Agnes had reached the tent, where she stood with her hand on the flap, turning a hasty look behind her, when a shot out of the dark from the direction of the river-bank struck her ears with a suddenness and a portent which seemed to carry the pain of death. She was facing that way; she saw the flash of it; she saw Jerry Boyle leap with lithe agility, as if springing from the scourge of flames, and sling his pistol from the hostler under his coat.
In his movement there was an admirable quickness, rising almost to the dignity of beauty in the rapidity with which he adjusted himself to meet this sudden exigency. In half the beat of a heart, it seemed, he had fired. Out of the dark came another leap of flame, 252 another report. Boyle walked directly toward the point from which it came, firing as he went. No answer came after his second shot.