"I'm the best judge of that," he retorted.

She shook her head with certainty. It seemed a lifetime since this boy
had kissed her at the dance and she had run, tingling, from his embrace.
She felt now old enough in experience to be his mother.

"No, Tom--let us both forget it. Go back to your other girls, and let me
be just a friend."

"I haven't any other girls," he answered sullenly. "And I won't be put
off like that. You've got to tell me what has come between us. I've got
a right to know, and I'm going to know."

"Yes, you have a right--but don't press it. Just let it go at this: I
didn't know my own mind then, and I do now."

"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."