"Give her back to me. You know where she is," he persisted. "You've got
her hid away. That's why you've sent your mother East--so's she wouldn't
know, though from what I see, I shouldn't think it'd have made much
difference to her."
Exclamations broke from the crowd. It was the wild West. It was a
country where, not twenty years before, men did justice upon men without
the assistance of the law; and the West understood that the dark insult
just uttered would in days not far gone have meant death. The onlookers
exclaimed, and then became silent, because a subtle sense of tragedy
suddenly smothered their voices. Upon the silence there broke a little
giggling laugh. It came from lips that were one in paleness with a face
grown stony.
"I ought to kill you," Orlando said quietly after a moment, yet scarcely
above a whisper. "I ought to kill you, Mazarine, but that would only be
playing your game, for the law would get hold of me, and the girl that
has left you would be sorrowful, for she knows I love her, though I never
told her so.
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