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“You have killed a man.”

The stranger looked steadily back into the trapper’s face, and answered as simply,–

“Yes, I am a murderer.”

Herbert started a trifle. The girl gave a slight exclamation and lifted her hand as if in protest. The trapper alone made reply,–

“Ye sartinly don’t look like a murderer, friend.”

“He is none! he is none!” exclaimed the girl. “He had provocation, old man! he had provocation!” and then she turned toward the man, and said: “Why will you say such things? Why will you condemn yourself wrongly? Why do you brood over a deed done in wrath, and under the strain that few might resist, as it had been done in cold blood, and with a murderer’s malice and forethought of evil?”

The man listened to her gravely, with a kind of considerate patience in the look of his face; waited a moment, when she had finished, as one might wait from the habit of politeness, and then, without answering her, said:

“You have not answered my question, old trapper.”

“I can’t answer it,–I sartinly can’t answer it, friend, onless I know the sarcumstances of the killin’; for there be killin’ that be right and there be killin’ that be wrong, and onless I know the sarcumstances of the killin’, my words would be like the words of a boy that talks in council without knowing what he is talkin’. Ef ye killed a man, how did ye kill him?”

“I killed him face to face,” answered the man. He paused a moment, and then repeated, “Face to face.”

“Why did ye kill him?” asked the trapper. “Had he done ye wrong?”

“He was my friend,” said the man, “my friend, true and tried.”

“Had he done ye a wrong?” persisted the trapper.

“What is wrong?” asked the man. “I can’t tell whether he had done me wrong or nay. I only know he had crossed my purpose,–stopped me from doing what I had set my heart on doing; and what I set my heart on doing, old man, I do.” And the man’s eyes darkened under the abundant brow and the face tightened and contracted, as a rope when a strain is upon it. “The man came between me and my purpose,” he added, “he stood up and faced me, and said I should not do what I proposed to do, and should not have what I had sworn to have; and I killed him where he stood.”

It was astonishing how quietly the words were said, considering the tremendous energy of will which was charged into and through their quietness.

“He had no right to do it,” said the girl; “he had no right to do it. It was none of his business, and you know it wasn’t,” And she spoke, apparently to the man, “Oh, sir, why do you not tell them that he was an intermeddler, and meddled with what was none of his business,–kindled you to rage by his meddling, and that you slew him in your rage, thoughtlessly, unintentionally? Why do you not tell them these things?”

The man listened to her again, politely. There was a look of grave courtesy in his eye as he half turned his face and looked upon her as she was speaking; but beyond this there was no recognition that he heard her. When she had finished, he turned his face again toward the trapper, and said:

“Old trapper, you have not answered my question. Has a man a right to take life?”

“Sartinly,” answered the trapper.

“How?” asked the man.

“In war,” answered the trapper.

“In any other way?” queried the man.

“Yis,–in self-defence.”

“Any other cause?” persisted the stranger.

“Not as a rule,” answered the trapper.

After this there was a silence. The girl’s head dropped into her two palms and for an instant her frame shook, as one contesting the passage of a strong feeling that insists on expression. The three men made no motion, but sat silently gazing into the fire.

For several minutes the silence lasted. There are two living that will never forget that silence. Then the man lifted his face and said,–