"No, Win,"
she answered softly, and despite the mighty pounding of his heart the
man realized it was the first time she had used that name. "You are
not going back alone. I am going too." Endicott made a gesture of
protest but she gave no heed. "From now on my place is with you. Oh,
Win, can't you see! I--I guess I have always loved you--only I didn't
know It. I wanted romance--wanted a red-blood man--a man who could do
things, and----"
"Oh, if I could come to you clean-handed!" he interrupted,
passionately; "if I could offer you a hand unstained by the blood of a
fellow creature!"
She laid a hand gently upon his shoulder and looked straight into his
eyes: "Don't, Win," she said; "don't always hark back to _that_. Let
us forget."
"I wish to God I could forget!" he answered, bitterly. "I know the act
was justified. I believe it was unavoidable. But--it is my New
England conscience, I suppose."
Alice smiled: "Don't let your conscience bother you, because it is a
New England conscience. They call you 'the pilgrim' out here. It is
the name they called your early Massachusetts forebears--and if history
is to be credited, they never allowed their consciences to stand in the
way of taking human life."
"But, they thought they were right."
"And you _know_ you were right!"
"I know--I know! It isn't the ethics--only the fact.
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