'I am sorry to hear you say that.'
'Am I not justified in saying it?'
'I hope not. When I first saw you I told you everything. If I have been wrong in attending to your wishes since, I regret it.'
'This comes from your seeing your master for two minutes on the beach. You are acting now under his orders. No doubt he came with the purpose. Had you told him you were to be here?'
'His coming was an accident.'
'It was very opportune at any rate. Well;--what have you to say to me? Or am I to understand that you suppose yourself to have said all that is required of you? Perhaps you would prefer that I should argue the matter out with your--friend, Mr Carbury.'
'What has to be said, I believe I can say myself.'
'Say it then. Or are you so ashamed of it that the words stick in your throat?'
'There is some truth in that. I am ashamed of it. I must say that which will be painful, and which would not have been to be said, had I been fairly careful.'
Then he paused. 'Don't spare me,' she said. 'I know what it all is as well as though it were already told. I know the lies with which they have crammed you at San Francisco. You have heard that up in Oregon-- I shot a man. That is no lie. I did. I brought him down dead at my feet.' Then she paused, and rose from her chair, and looked at him. 'Do you wonder that that is a story that a woman should hesitate to tell? But not from shame. Do you suppose that the sight of that dying wretch does not haunt me? that I do not daily hear his drunken screech, and see him bound from the earth, and then fall in a heap just below my hand? But did they tell you also that it was thus alone that I could save myself,--and that had I spared him, I must afterwards have destroyed myself? If I were wrong, why did they not try me for his murder? Why did the women flock around me and kiss the very hems of my garments? In this soft civilization of yours you know nothing of such necessity. A woman here is protected,--unless it be from lies.'
'It was not that only,' he whispered.
'No; they told you other things,' she continued, still standing over him. 'They told you of quarrels with my husband. I know the lies, and who made them, and why. Did I conceal from you the character of my former husband? Did I not tell you that he was a drunkard and a scoundrel? How should I not quarrel with such a one? Ah, Paul; you can hardly know what my life has been.'