nded to say to this young gentleman. But then, also,
she had said a good deal more than she had intended to say. So it was
about even. She had said enough. And it would do him no harm. She had
felt that she owed _mon Rafe_ a little plain speaking. She was much
relieved.

Jeffrey Whiting stood where she had left him digging up the tender
roots of the new grass with his toe. He did not look after the girl.
He had forgotten her.

He felt no resentment at the things that she had said. He did not
argue with himself as to whether these things were just or unjust. Of
all the things that she had said only one thing mattered. And that not
because she had said it. It mattered because it was true. The quick,
jabbing sentences from the girl had driven home to him just one
thing.

Guilty? He _was_ guilty. He was as guilty as--Rafe Gadbeau.

Provocation? Yes, he had had provocation, bitter, blinding provocation.
But so had Rafe Gadbeau: and he had never thought of Rafe Gadbeau as
anything but guilty of murder.

He turned on his heel and walked down the Run with swift, swinging
strides, fighting this conviction that was settling upon him. He
fought it viciously, with contempt, arguing that he was a man, that
the thing was done and past, that men have no time for remorse and
sickish, mawkish repentance. Those things were for brooding women, and
Frenchmen. He fought it reasonably, sagaciously; contending that he
had not, in fact, pulled the trigger. How did he know that he would
ever have done so? Maybe he had not really intended to kill at all.
Maybe he would not have killed. The man might have spoken to him.
Perhaps he was going to speak when he turned that time. Who could
tell? Ten thousand things might have happened, any one of which would
have stood between him and killing the man. He fought it defiantly.
Suppose he had killed the man? What about it? The man deserved it. He
had a right to kill him.

But he knew that he was losing at every angle of the fight. For the
conviction answered not a word to any of these things. It merely
fastened itself upon his spirit and stuck to the original indictment:
"As guilty as Rafe Gadbeau."

And when he came over the top of the hill, from where he could look
down upon the grave of Rafe Gadbeau there under the Gaunt Rocks, the
conviction pointed out to him just one enduring fact. It said: "There
is the grave of Rafe Gadbeau; as long as memory lives to say anything
about that grave it wi