IV
We began going out shooting again. Glahn felt he had wronged me, and begged my pardon.
“And I'm dead sick of the whole thing,” he said. “I only wish you'd make a slip one day and put a bullet in my throat.” It was that letter from the Countess again, perhaps, that was smouldering in his mind. I answered:
“As a man soweth, so shall he also reap.”
Day by day he grew more silent and gloomy. He had given up drinking now, and didn't say a word, either; his cheeks grew hollow.
One day I heard talking and laughter outside my window; Glahn had turned cheerful again, and he stood there talking out loud to Maggie. He was getting in all his fascinating tricks. Maggie must have come straight from her hut, and Glahn had been watching and waiting for her. They even had the nerve to stand there making up together right outside my glass window.
I felt a trembling in all my limbs. I cocked my gun; then I let the hammer down again. I went outside and took Maggie by the arm; we walked out of the village in silence; Glahn went back into the hut again at once.
“What were you talking with him again for?” I asked Maggie.
She made no answer.
I was thoroughly desperate. My heart beat so I could hardly breathe. I had never seen Maggie look so lovely as she did then—never seen a real white girl so beautiful. And I forgot she was a Tamil—forgot everything for her sake.