Page:Frank Spearman--Whispering Smith.djvu/279

 on the horizon. “I expect you to kill me sometime; I feel sure you will. And that you may do.” Then she bent her look on him. “You may do it now if you want to.”

His face turned heavy with rage. “Marion,” he cried, with an oath, “do you know how close you are to death at this moment?”

“You may do it now.”

He clinched the bench-rail and rose slowly to his feet. Marion sat motionless in the hickory chair; the sun was shining in her face and her hands were folded in her lap. Dicksie rocked on the porch. In the shadow of the house the man was mending the saddle. 255