“No,” I said. “He won't. Are you sorry about that?”
“No, no,” she said quickly. “I am glad.”
She said no more about him, and I felt easier. And Maggie went home with me, too, when I asked her.
When she went, a couple of hours later, I climbed up the ladder to Glahn's room and knocked at the thin reed door. He was in. I said:
“I came to tell you that perhaps we'd better not go out shooting to-morrow.”
“Why not?” said Glahn.
“Because I'm not so sure but I might make a little mistake and put a bullet in your throat.”
Glahn did not answer, and I went down again. After that warning he would hardly dare to go out to-morrow—but what did he want to get Maggie out under my window for, and fool with her there at the top of his voice? Why didn't he go back home again, if the letter really asked him, instead of going about as he often did, clenching his teeth and shouting at the empty air: “Never, never! I'll be drawn and quartered first?”
But the morning after I had warned him, as I said, there was Glahn the same as ever, standing by my bed, calling out:
“Up with you, comrade! It's a lovely day; we must go out and shoot something. That was all nonsense you said yesterday.”