If there were a qualm of conscience in the girl's heart she ruthlessly murdered it, and evenly replied: "Yes, I am proud of you for that. It was other things I meant." He turned now, and slowly questioned her with his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't want you to know about Tusk, and when you took me by surprise that way, I reckon I acted rough! Who'd a-thought we were born enemies!--an' after all you've done to help me! But I tried, Gawd knows I tried, to pay the debt!" A wave of pity thrilled her, but her voice was proportionately accusing as she said: "All you've tried can not atone for what you did." "I know," he buried his face in his hands. "That was ignorance, an' I'm payin' for it by havin' you turn away an' snap my future like a fiddle string! Oh, how could my hand a-struck yoh people--even in black ignorance!" Her mental claws, which had bared at the approach of this interview, now softly began to find their padded coverings. The anxious anticipation which had armed her against an untested foe, now left but a sympathy straining to take possession; because her instinct said there was to be no resisting force, and the crushed attitude of the man before her plainly told that she was still the unlowered, the unapproachable being in his eyes. With her pride unhurt, her belligerency was unessential. For a moment more she continued to let him suffer. She might have relieved it now--she even wanted to--but the old savage spirit was still unappeased, and a devil of the feud days made her ask: "Where are you going, and what are you intending to make of your life?" She might have expected some outburst as a result of this, for she shrank slightly back; but he did not move. He seemed too crushed, and pressed his hands more violently against his face, murmuring from the depths of inordinate suffering: "Oh, Gawd! That you an' I should be enemies!--that we were born to be enemies!"