Bobby turned back. Her lips were tight and trembling.
"Well?" she said, tears in her eyes again, and her manner proved that Hilton's denial had fallen far short of being convincing.
"Then there were other factors: As soon as I arrived here things commenced to go wrong. Because I was a woman, people thought they could usurp my rights. My horses were stolen; my hay was burned; my ditches broken. My men were shot at. A note was sent to me, telling me that I'd better leave the country while I had something left.
"You see, don't you, that that meant that men—it must have been men who did it—had no respect for me?
"This water down here was fenced. That was your right, but I thought I could persuade you to help me a little. I think yet that I could have done so but for your misunderstanding....
"I knew that you wanted the respect of men. I knew that about all you had in life was your self respect. I knew that the same man who had made love to me and who had not meant it, was making love to you and not meaning it. I called him to see me and tried to talk him out of it, begged him to go away from you before ... before you had stopped respecting yourself. You must have mistaken my motive in—"
"You didn't send for him to ask him to take you back? You didn't do that?"
"I have told you my motive once; that was the truth ... whole truth."
Again Bobby turned and again her accusing, flaring eyes sought Hilton's distraught face.
"So you lied to me again, did you? That was a lie, was it?" She waited. "Well, why don't you answer?" she flung at him and stood, directing on him the hate that she had once shown for Jane Hunter.