"It's something about the shooting of Buck Weaver," he growled uneasily.
She was silent.
"Well?" he demanded. "Out with it!"
"I couldn't marry a man I don't respect from the bottom of my heart," she told him gently.
"That's a dig at me, I reckon. Why don't you respect me? Is it because I shot Weaver?"
"You shot him from ambush."
"I didn't!" he protested angrily. "You know that ain't so, Phyl. I saw him riding down there, as big as coffee, and I let him have it. I wasn't lying in wait for him at all. It just came over me all of a heap to shoot, and I shot before——"
"I understand that. But you shouldn't have shot without giving warning, even if it was right to shoot at all—which, of course, it wasn't."
"Well, say I did wrong. Can't you forgive a fellow for making a mistake?"
"It isn't a question of forgiveness, Tom. Somehow it goes deeper than that. I can't tell you just what I mean."