Once more the bishop quoted earnestly. “'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.'”
“How about instruments of Providence, seh? Why, we can't get at it that way. If you start usin' the Bible that way, it will mix you up mighty quick, seh.”
“My friend,” the bishop urged, and all his good, warm heart was in it, “my dear fellow—go away for the one night. He'll change his mind.”
The Virginian shook his head. “He cannot change his word, seh. Or at least I must stay around till he does. Why, I have given him the say-so. He's got the choice. Most men would not have took what I took from him in the saloon. Why don't you ask him to leave town?”
The good bishop was at a standstill. Of all kicking against the pricks none is so hard as this kick of a professing Christian against the whole instinct of human man.
“But you have helped me some,” said the Virginian. “I will go and tell her. At least, if I think it will be good for her, I will tell her.”
The bishop thought that he saw one last chance to move him.
“You're twenty-nine,” he began.
“And a little over,” said the Virginian.
“And you were fourteen when you ran away from your family.”