it:

"I kissed ye erginst yore will, an' I cussed an' damned yore husband,
but I did both them things in sudden heat an' passion. Ye ought ter take
thought afore ye disgusts me too everlastin'ly much thet I've done loved
ye ever since we was both kids tergither. I've done been compelled ter
put behind me all ther hopes I ever hed endurin' my whole lifetime an'
hit's been makin' a hell of tormint outen my days an' nights hyar of
late."

He had risen now, and into his argument as he bowed a bared and
allegedly stricken head he was managing to put an excellent semblance of
sincerity.

But it was before a court of feminine intuition that Bas Rowlett stood
arraigned, and his specious contriteness fell flat as it came from his
lips. Dorothy was looking at him now in the glare of revelation--and
seeing a loathsome portrait.

"An hour ago," she declared with no relenting in the deep blaze of her
eyes, "I believed all good of ye. Now I sees ye fer what ye air an' I
suspicions iniquities thet I hedn't nuver dreamp' of afore. I wouldn't
put hit past ye ter hev deevised Cal's lay-wayin' yoreself. I wouldn't
be none astonished ef ye hired ther man thet shot him ... an' yit I'd
nigh cut my tongue afore I'd drap a hint of thet ter him."

That last statement both amazed and gratified the intriguer. He had now
two avowed enemies in this house and each stood pledged to a solitary
reckoning. His warfare against one of them was prompted by murder-lust
and against the other by love-lust, but the cardinal essence of good
strategy is to dispose of hostile forces in detail and to prevent their
uniting for defence or offence. It seemed to Bas that, in this, the
woman was preparing to play into his hands, but he inquired, without
visible eagerness:

"Fer why does ye say thet?"

Out of Dorothy's wide eyes was blazing upon him torrential fury and
contempt. Yet she did not give him her truest reasons in her answer. She
had no longer any fear of him for herself, but she trembled inwardly at
the menace of his treachery against her man.

"I says hit," she answered, still in that level, ominously pitched voice
that spoke from a heart too profoundly outraged for gusty vehemence,
"because, now thet I knows ye, I don't need nobody ter fight ye fer me.
He trusts ye an' thinks ye're his friend, an' so long es ye don't lift
no finger ter harm him I'm willin' ter let him go on trustin' ye." She
paused, and to her ears with a soothing whisper came th