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 for if it's going to make you feel so sick?" she asked, out of patience with his shocked and shaken state. "Didn't they shoot at you?"

"I expect maybe they did, Edith," he replied dully.

"You expect maybe they did!" she said with scornful reproach. "Look here!"

She took hold of his shirt-sleeve, on the side towards his body, near the arm-pit, showing him a bullet hole, her manner as sternly corrective as if she had convicted him on suppressed evidence of some grave offence.

Rawlins looked at the place curiously, and tucked it under his arm to hide it, apparently ashamed to have his past peril known. He muttered something that she did not understand, holding his arm tight against his side as if to deny her any further exploration. His attitude nettled her, it seemed so sulky and petulant. It was as if he resented her producing evidence to justify him in the deed for which he had such remorseful qualms.

"Two or three inches over and it would have been your heart instead of your sleeve," she said. "And you stand there like you wanted to apologize for them! You make me sick, whinin' around here because you happened to kill a man that was tryin' to burn your house. What are you goin' to do when they come back with Hewitt to wipe you off the earth?"

There was an insolent challenge in her demand, a flaunting of open scorn.

"Come back with Hewitt?" he repeated, stretching his eyes as if the thing had an astonishing sound. His face darkened with a rush of hot blood; he stood feet