Читать книгу A Battle for Right; Or, A Clash of Wits онлайн

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“They call me a coward!”

“What of that?” demanded the girl, her eyes sparkling in her anger as she thought of the attack on Gordon. “You’re not a coward! You’ve given too many proofs that you are just the reverse. Just because you would not fight that big ruffian! Call you a coward! Why, I saw his head towering far above yours. He is a giant!”

Bob Gordon flushed. He knew that the girl’s excuse for him was well meant. But it hardly soothed him or helped to restore his self-respect.

“It wasn’t that,” he assured her hastily. “I was not afraid of him—not of him! I wish you would believe that, Bessie, although I’m afraid no one else ever will.”

“What was it, then?”

“Just this: I once—in a fight—killed a man!”

She recoiled a little. It was an involuntary movement, but Gordon saw it, and it caused him to continue quickly:

“I never meant to do it, Heaven knows. But we’d quarreled, and it came to a fight. I remember that. But I swear I do not recall striking a blow hard enough to kill him. It was on the point of the jaw, and he fell senseless. But he should have recovered in a few seconds. It was not a deadly blow, ordinarily. We had both been drinking. That—that is why I never touch liquor now, Bessie.”