“Ordinarily,” she thought, “I should think it excessively wrong to sympathise with a desire to kill, or even to tolerate it in my mind. But I see clearly that in that matter, as in most others, there are questions of circumstance to be considered. Every human being has a right to kill in self-defence. Both law and morals recognise that. In a state of nature, I suppose, every man is constantly at war on his own private account, and he has an entire right to make war in defence of himself and his family. The only reason he hasn’t that right in a state of civilisation is that society protects him, in return for his giving up his right to make private war. But when society, as represented by the state, refuses to protect him, or when the state cannot protect him, he has his right of private war in full force again. “That was Evelyn’s case. She was a helpless child in the hands of a brute. There was no way in which she could secure protection from any wrong he might see fit to do her. So, when he came with evident intent to do her harm, she had a perfect right, I think, to fight for herself in any way she could. No human being is under obligation to submit to an insult or a blow. “Besides—well, never mind that. I was thinking of the way in which we all recognise killing in war as entirely legitimate. But that is a large subject, which I haven’t thought out to the end as yet. For the present purpose it is enough to know that Evelyn had a right to make such war as she could—poor little mite of a girl that she was—upon that brutal man. I should have done the same under like circumstances. Yes; I heartily approve her conduct.” With that, Dorothy turned again to the manuscript, and read what follows:— Chapter the Sixth I HAD hurt Campbell very badly indeed. I had shattered the bridge of his nose to bits, and there was a great commotion in the house—sending for a lot of doctors, and all that. My mother thought of nothing but staunching the blood and getting the doctors there. The servants were all excited and running about bringing hot water and towels and so forth, so that no attention was paid to me. I took advantage of the confusion. I put on a little cloak and my sun-bonnet, and quietly slipped out through one of the back doors into the grounds. Then I called my dog, Prince, to go with me, and in the gloaming—for it was nearly nightfall—he and I waded across the little creek that ran at the back of the place. The house stood at the extreme edge of the little city, and there was no town on the farther side of the creek. So Prince and I went on down the road, meeting nobody.