I looked down at her, put my arm round her, pulled her to me. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m not made to be pushed around. I’m sorry, kid, but I’m going back. I said I’d fix Killeano, and I’m going to fix him. I feel a heel doing this to you, but I have to five with myself, and I’d never forgive myself if I let that rat slip through my hands.”
“All right, darling,” she said. “I see how it is. I’m sorry I didn’t understand before. Forgive me?”
I kissed her.
“Darling,” she said after a while, “do you want me to wait for you?”
I stared at her. “You’re certainly going to wait for me,” I said.
She shook her head. “Not certainly,” she said. “I’ll wait, on one condition. Otherwise I won’t be here when you come back. I mean it.”
“And the condition?”
“You’re not to kill Killeano. Up to now you have defended yourself. If you kill Killeano it will be murder. That mustn’t be. Will you promise?”
“Now, I can’t promise that,” I said “He might get me in spot—”
“That’s different. I mean you’re not to go gunning for him. If he attacks you, then that’s different. But you’re not to hunt him down and shoot him as you have been planning to do.”