"When smaller things failed," he repeated, "you would have resorted even to murder. Your necessity must have been great."
"Believe me--it was!" she answered.
He brought up short at the unexpected feeling that vibrated in her voice. His face expressed a faint surprise, and he returned to his subject with fresh interest.
"And when my eyes failed me, and you could have given me my sight by the mere reading of a label, you refused; you condemned me to the darkness. And, further, when I had a chance to learn my remedy for myself, you destroyed it. I wonder whether that cost you anything, too?" He sat apparently staring out into the distance, his sightless eyes wide with the peculiar blank pathos of the blind. The Leopard Woman's own eyes were suffused with tears!
"I remember now something you said when you broke the bottle of pilocarpin," he said slowly. "I did not notice it at the time; now it comes to me. 'I have saved your life,' you said. I get the meaning of that now. You would have killed me rather than not have forestalled me; but the blindness saved you that necessity. You know, I am a little glad to learn that you did not want to kill me."
"Want!" she cried. "How could I want?"
Kingozi chuckled.
"You told me enough times just what you thought of me."
Her crest reared, but drooped again.
"No women likes to be treated so. And if you had your eyes, so I would hate you again!"