“What if there be no sin in the killing of such enemies? Think, why did you strike the man down?”
He avoided her eyes.
“To save me. Because your heart told you that these men brought me death—perhaps things that are worse than death. You killed them, but I live and am free.”
She smiled bravely.
“Free—to be grateful—free to swear to you from my heart that the deed was done nobly. And now—what of the morrow?”
He could not rise to her rebel mood as yet; the old life still hung to him, though he realized that it was a thing of rags and tatters.
“To-morrow? I cannot think of a to-morrow. Life seems to end for me in a great cliff.”
She made herself look at the dead man, pointed at him with her finger.
“You know whom you have killed?”
“Vance, the Forest Warden.”