"You? Stop crying or I'll shake you! What have the police to do with you?"
"I—I did it. I shot Amos Hammond."
"You! You are mad, Flora! You knew nothing about it until this afternoon. You knew nothing until Steeves told you."
"I pretended not to know, naturally. I wasn't in when you got home before dinner, was I? I came in fifteen or twenty minutes after you. You noticed that, Jim. I shot him. I was in the woods, and I saw him suddenly on the road—and I shot him!"
"Good Lord! Why?"
"I thought of poor old Widow Wilson, and of the time he tried to kill you, and of things he has said about us."
"Good heavens!"
"So you see, I must get away—before morning."
Jim dried three cups in silence.
"I'll go," he said, his voice low but steady. "Tell me what you have planned after the old boys have turned in: and I'll get away before dawn."