"Do you mean to kill me?"
"Ef I hev to, 't won't keep me awake nights."
In my ear I heard his Lily's attenuated whisper: "Nor me neither, if Jaspar ain't caught."
And I had thought that solicitude for Jaspar's soul had sent his Lily, hot-foot to prevent the crime of--murder! I learnt something about women then which I shall not forget.
"You propose to blackmail me, I suppose?"
"Ugly word, that, but it's yours, not mine. I prefer to put it this way. I propose to consecrate this yere church with an act o' justice."
"Go on!"
"This county wan't big enough for the other feller an' me, so he had to go; it ain't big enough to-day for you an' me, but this time, I'm a-goin', whether you stay in it or under it."
At the word "under" Uncle Jap's Lily nudged me. I looked at her. Her face was radiant. Her delight in her husband at such a moment, her conviction that he was master of the situation, that he had regained by this audacious move all the prestige which he had in her estimation, lost--these things rejuvenated her.
"It's a question of dollars, of course?"