“You shall not say that!” she panted. “I will not let you say it! Nobody shall say it! I defy the whole world to say it!”
“But it’s––it’s true,” said the boy brokenly as he held her.
“It is not true! Never! Nothing’s true, only the truth that God has hidden in His heart! And that is hidden! How can we say? How dare we say what we would have done, when we 338 didn’t do it? How do we know what’s really in our hearts? Don’t you see, Jeffrey boy, we cannot say things like that! We don’t know! I won’t let you say it.
“And if you do say it,” she argued, “why, I’ll have to say it, too.”
“You?”
“Yes, I. Do you remember that night you were in the sugar cabin? I was outside looking through the chinks at Rafe Gadbeau. What was I thinking? What was in my heart? I’ll tell you. I was out there stalking like a panther. I wanted just one thing out of all the world. Just one thing! My rifle! To kill him! I would have done it gladly––with joy in my heart! I could have sung while I was doing it!
“Now,” she gasped, “now, if you’re going to say that thing, why, we’ll say it together!”
The big boy, holding the trembling girl closer in his arms, understood nothing but that she wanted to stand with him, to put herself in whatever place was his, to take that black, terrible shadow that had fallen on him and wrap it around herself too.
“My poor little white-souled darling,” he said through tears that choked him, “I can’t take this from you! It’s too much, I can’t!”
After a little the girl relaxed, tiredly, against his shoulder and argued dreamily: