"I have it," he said, "I have it at last. I will give Jim Connor a job in the Rio branch—with good pay, too—to drink himself to death on. Why not," he asked himself vehemently, as if he would convince himself, "that's practical."
"It would be murder," the priest spoke in a voice of horror.
"Not by the letter of the law—and that's what you're enforcing."
"Of course I shall warn him."
"My pay will talk louder," said Stevens, knowing that the drunkard is always on ticket-of-leave, "and he'll have all the time off he wants for aguardiente, stronger than whiskey, and cheaper. No white man can go against it for long in that climate."
Georgia stood back, fascinated by the duel of the two men.
"You must be mad, Stevens," said the priest with a note of fear in his voice, as if he realized that for the first time he was losing control of the situation.
"I'm a grown man. No other man can say 'No' to me forever. If Connor's the one obstacle to our marriage—I'll remove it."
The two men looked at each other with steady and increasing anger.
The woman laid her hand upon her lover's shoulder. "I will get an absolute divorce, Mason," she said.