"You're too generous, Mr. Morgan. There are only a few of us here who care about order and peace—you can see that for yourself this morning—no matter what assurance they gave you yesterday. Let it go. If you don't want to get your horse and ride away, you can at least resign. You've got justification enough for that, you've seen the men that promised to support you yesterday turn their backs on you when you came up the street today. They don't want the town shut up, they don't want it changed—not when it hits their pocketbooks. You can tell pa that, and resign—or I'll tell him—it was my fault, I got you into it."
"You couldn't expect me to do that—you don't expect it," he chided, his voice grave and low.
"I can want you to do it—I don't expect it."
"Of course not. We'll not talk about it any more."
They continued toward her father's office in silence, crossing the stretch of barren in which the little catalpa tree stood. Rhetta looked up into his face.
"You've never killed a man, Mr. Morgan," she said, more as a positive statement than as a question.
"No, I never have, Miss Thayer," Morgan answered her, as ingenuously sincere as she had asked it.
"I think I know it by the touch of a man's hand," she said, her face growing pale from her deep revulsion. "I shudder at the touch of blood. If you could be spared that in the ordeal ahead of you!"
"There's no backing out of it. The challenge has passed," he said.
"No, there's no way. He's coming—he knows you're waiting for him. But I hope you'll not have to—I hope you'll come out of it clean! A curse of blood falls on every man that takes this office. I wish—I hope, you can keep clear of that."