“Did I?” she persisted.
“God grant you did,” he said, solemnly. “There is blood outside the window, but he is gone.”
“I don’t like to kill people,” she said, brokenly. “Why do I always have to do it?”
He drew her to him strongly and held her close against his breast.
“You are the bravest and best girl on earth,” he said. “My girl,—you are my girl, you know,—hereafter I will do all necessary killing for—my wife.”
He kissed the sweet, quivering lips as he said it.
Some one came running up the stairs, and stopped suddenly in front of the two in the passage.
“Why, Jim!” cried Langford in surprise. “I thought you had gone with the stretcher.”
“I did go,” said Jim, swallowing hard. He shifted nervously from one spurred foot to the other. “But I came back.”
He looked at Langford beseechingly.