"Inform against him?"
"Inform? What a word to use!" said Pendleton with asperity. "I mean to give him up to justice as he richly deserves."
"But he didn't do it," said Pen with an odd, detached air. The words came out of her involuntarily.
Pendleton stared. "How do you know?"
"By instinct," she said simply.
"Fiddlesticks!" said Pendleton. "You read the paper, didn't you?"
Pen merely smiled the smile that women use when they decline to argue with a man. It is very exasperating to a man.
"You have seen the man once and exchanged a few pleasantries with him!" he cried. "Do you presume to decide from that whether or not he is capable of murder?"
"I suppose he could shoot a man—with sufficient provocation," she said coolly. "Any man could I suppose ... But not like that. Not in the back!"
Pendleton flung up his hands. "Isn't that like a woman! Just because he has fine eyes I suppose, and a taking smile!"