“There is much more,” he insisted. “Tell me that he snatched the glove from you, tell me that you lost it—tell me anything, and I’ll believe you—but tell me something!”
“There is nothing to tell you,” said she, resentful of the meddling of Nola Chadron, which his own light conduct with her had in a manner justified.
“Then I can only imagine the truth,” he told her, bitterly. “But surely you didn’t give him the glove, surely you cannot love that wolf of the range, that cattle thief, that murderer!”
“You have no right to ask me that,” she said, flashing with resentment.
“I have a right to ask you that, to ask you more; not only to ask, but to demand. And you must answer. You forget that you are my affianced wife.”
“But you are not my confessor, for all that.”
“God’s name!” groaned King, his teeth set, his eyes staring as if he had gone mad. “Will you shame us both? Do you forget you are my affianced wife?”
“That is ended—you are free!”
“Frances!” he cried, sharply, as in despair of one sinking, whom he was powerless to save.