"You are a good shot!" he exclaimed, looking at the bright, clear-cut face beside him, warmed into its warmest tints by the keen air and the continuous mounting of their steps.
"But not a good woman," she answered shortly, quickly reading the thoughts that accompanied his words. She did not look at him, but straight ahead.
"You might be both," he said, with a sudden impulse of interest and regret.
Katrine laughed.
"I don't know," she said lightly. "Good women are not usually good shots. You don't generally find them combined. But any way, what have I to do with goodness? I don't need it in my business."
He did not answer, and they walked on in silence till they came up to the little dark lump in the road. It was a small marmot. Katrine glanced at it and passed on. Talbot stooped and picked up the scrap of blood-stained fur.
"What did you do it for?" he asked curiously.
"Practice, that's all," she answered.
"Don't you feel sorry to kill merely for the sake of practice?"
"No. I should have been sorry if I had wounded it; but it's a good thing to be dead, I think. I wouldn't have shot unless I had been almost entirely sure I should kill it."