"Well, somebody had to be killed. Do you suppose Mr. Morgan killed them just for fun?"
"They say, they were talking all over town that night—last night—and saying the same thing this morning, that he didn't give them a show, that he just turned his rifle on them and killed them before he knew whether they were going to shoot or not!"
"Well, they lie," said Violet, with the calmness of conviction.
"I suppose he had a right to do what he did, but he doesn't seem like the same man to me now. I feel like I'd lost something—some friendship that I valued, I mean, Violet—you know what I mean."
"I know as well as anything," said Violet, smiling to herself, head turned away, the moonlight on her good, kind face.
"I feel like somebody had died, and that he—they—that he——"
"And you ought to be thankful it isn't so!" said Violet, sharply, "but I don't believe you are."
"I never want to see him again, I'll always think of him standing there with that terrible gun in his hands, those dead men around him on the floor!"
"You may have to go to him on your knees yet, and I hope to God you will Rhetta Thayer!" Violet said.
"If you'd seen somebody—somebody that you—that was—if you'd seen him like I saw him, you wouldn't blame me so," Rhetta defended, beginning again to cry, and bend her head upon her hands and moan like a mother who had lost a child.