"I didn't!" he protested angrily. "You know that ain't so, Phyl. I saw
him riding down there, as big as coffee, and I let him have it. I wasn't
lying in wait for him at all. It just came over me all of a heap to
shoot, and I shot before----"

"I understand that. But you shouldn't have shot without giving warning,
even if it was right to shoot at all--which, of course, it wasn't."

"Well, say I did wrong. Can't you forgive a fellow for making a
mistake?"

"It isn't a question of forgiveness, Tom. Somehow it goes deeper than
that. I can't tell you just what I mean."

"Haven't I told you I'm sorry?" he demanded, with boyish impatience.

"Being sorry isn't enough. If you can't see it then I can't explain."

"You're sore at me because I left you," he muttered, and for very shame
his eyes could not meet hers.

"No--I'm not sore at you, as you call it. I haven't the least
resentment. But there's no use in trying to hide the truth. Since you
ask for it, you shall have it. I don't want to be unkind, but I couldn't
possibly marry you after that."

The young man looked sulkily across the valley, his lips trembling with
vexation and the shame of knowing that this girl had been a witness of
that scene when he had fled like a scared rabbit and left her to bear
the brunt of what he had done.