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

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“I should advise you to go home,” she murmured. “You say your father is wealthy. I always felt sure that you were not the sort of man you have allowed yourself to be regarded out here. You are not an ordinary laborer. Your manners are those of a gentleman. That shows in so many little ways.”

“I’m a murderer!”

“No, no. Don’t use such a word as that. It was not murder—if it happened in a fair fight. Any of the men about here would say you had a right to do it.”

“That may be. But it would not be looked at in that way in my home near New York. I am convinced that if I were to go back I should be arrested and have to go through all the horrors of a trial for murder. The end would be, very likely, the electric chair in Sing Sing. My blood turns to water and my heart to ice when I think of such a possibility. I am a coward about that. I am not afraid of death, I believe—of death itself. But to die in that way! The shame of it!”

He shuddered and covered his face with his hands. She touched him gently on the arm.