“I fear that in me,” Nance went on earnestly, “that thing which seems to flare and make me hot all over when I think of Bud. I pray against it every night of my life. Mammy says it’s feud in my heart—and I say so, too.”
For a long time the man studied her face.
“Yes,” he said presently, “there’s something in you that would fight—but it would take something terrible to break it loose from leash—some cataclysmic emergency.”
“Danger,” she said quickly, “that’s what’d loose it, danger to some one I love, like Bud or Mammy. I know it, and am afraid.”
“Why afraid?” asked Fair quietly, “if you had to do it, why fear the necessary issue?”
“Because,” she answered solemnly, “the Bible says ‘Thou shalt not kill.’”
A certain embarrassment seemed to overtake the man for a moment and he dropped his eyes to his cigarette, turning it over and over in his fingers.
“That’s as you look at it, I suppose,” he said, “to every person his limits and inhibitions.”
“But let’s not talk of feuds and killings,” said Nance, laughing brightly as she hugged the child and rubbed his tousled head. “What do you think of our country—Nameless River and the Deep Heart hills?”
“Beautiful. Sonny and I have traveled over many a thousand miles in the last two years, and we have yet to see a place more lovely—or lonely.”