"Why do you ask that?" she demanded with a flash of anger that he should continue this useless pretence. "Do you think I am a fool?"
"No. I am asking because I want to know. It's a safe gamble that the man you had a tussel with is the man who lamed my horse."
"Is it?" she asked with cool sarcasm. "And it's just as safe a gamble that he is a coward and a … brute!"
"I don't know about his being a coward, and I don't care about his being a brute," he told her steadily. "But I do want to know what he looks like."
Again she called herself a little fool and bit her lip in the surge of her vexation. She had been glad and over eager just now to restore her faith to this big brut of a man; at a mere word from him she had been ready to condone a crime and forgive an insult…. She felt her face grow hot; he had kissed her rudely and she had been willing to find excuses, she had even felt as odd sort of thrill tingling through her. And now this eternal play-acting of his, this insane pretence….
"Mr. Thornton, this is getting us nowhere," she reminded him coldly. "If you care to be told I can assure you that I know perfectly well who the man was who … who came into the cabin that night. And I think that it would be for the best if you returned … my property!"
"I'm going to return it. Now, will you answer my question? Will you tell me who that man was?"
"Why do you pretend in this stupid way?" she demanded hotly.
"Why don't you tell me who he was?" he returned, frowning a little.
For a moment she did not answer. Then, her voice very low, she said, speaking slowly,