"Hannah, woman, I couldn't wait till Sunday! I couldn't rest! Knowing of
your situation, I felt as if I must come to you and say what I had on my
mind! Do you forgive me?"
"For what?" asked Hannah in surprise.
"For coming afore Sunday."
"Sit down, Reuben, and don't be silly. As well have it over now as any
other time."
"Very well, then, Hannah," said the man, drawing a chair to the table at
which she sat working, and seating himself.
"Now, then, what have you to say, Reuben?"
"Well, Hannah, my dear, you see I didn't want to make a disturbance
while the body of that poor girl lay unburied in the house; but now I
ask you right up and down who is the wretch as wronged Nora?" demanded
the man with a look of sternness Hannah had never seen on his patient
face before.
"Why do you wish to know, Reuben?" she inquired in a low voice.
"To kill him."
"Reuben Gray!"
"Well, what's the matter, girl?"
"Would you do murder?"
"Sartainly not, Hannah; but I will kill the villain as wronged Nora
wherever I find him, as I would a mad dog."
"It would be the same thing! It would be murder!"
"No, it wouldn't, Hannah. It would be honest killing. For when a cussed
villain hunts down and destroys an innocent girl, he ought to be counted
an outlaw that any man may slay who finds him. And if so be he don't get
his death from the first comer, he ought to be sure of getting it from
the girl's nearest male relation or next friend. And if every such
scoundrel knew he was sure to die for his crime, and the law would hold
his slayer guiltless, there would be a deal less sin and misery in this
world. As for me, Hannah, I feel it to be my solemn duty to Nora, to
womankind, and to the world, to seek out the wretch as wronged her and
kill him where I find him, just as I would a rattlesnake as had bit my
child."
"They would hang you for it, Reuben!" shuddered Hannah.
"Then they'd do very wrong! But they'd not hang me, Hannah! Thank
Heaven, in these here parts we all vally our women's innocence a deal
higher than we do our lives, or even our honor. And if a man is right to
kill another in defense of his own life, he is doubly right to do so in
defense of woman's honor. And judges and juries know it, too, and feel
it, as has been often proved. But anyways, whether or no," said Reuben
Gray, with the dogged persistence for which men of his class are often
noted, "I want to find that man to give him his dues."