"Oh, this is horrible!"
The man made a wry smile.
"I presume it is, ma'am,"—drearily, "but I can't help it, lovin' you."
"No, no, not that!" she cried. "I didn't mean that was horrible. It ... it isn't. The horrible thing is the rest, the whole situation."
"I know it is," he went on, heedless of her explanation, moving toward the window and looking into the street as he talked, his back to her. "I know it is, but it had to be. If I had kept from talkin' it would sort of festered in me. When a horse runs somethin' in his foot, you've got to cut th' hoof away, got to hurt him for a while, or it'll go bad with him. Let what's in there out an' gettin' along will be simple.
"That's how it was with me, you see. If I'd kept still, I'd 'a' gone sort of loco, I might have hurt him. But now ...
"Why, now, I can just remember that you know how I feel, that you wouldn't want a man who's said he loves you to be anythin' but kind to your ... to Ned Lytton."
When he finished, the woman took just one step forward. It was an impulsive movement, as if she would run to him, throw herself on him; and her lips were parted, her throat ready to cry out and ask him to take her and forget all else but that love he had declared for her. In a flash the madness was past; she remembered that she must not forget anything because of his confession of love, rather that she must keep more firmly than ever in mind those other factors of her life, that she must stifle and throttle this yearning for the man before her which had been latent, the existence of which she had denied to herself until this hour, and which was consuming her strength now with its desire for expression.
She walked slowly to the dresser and laid his gun there, as though even its slight weight were a burden.
"I'm so sorry," she said, as though physically weak, "I'm so sorry." He turned away from the window with a helpless smile. "I don't feel right, now, in letting you do this for me. I feel ..."