"Why can't I do it?" he taunted.
She ran close to him and laid her hands on his arm. Her eyes were
fixed steadily on his. "Because," she whispered, "the man who shot
that girl-is your brother-in-law, Ham Cutler!"
For what seemed a long time Wharton stood looking down into the
eyes of the woman, and the eyes never faltered. Later he recalled
that in the sudden silence many noises disturbed the lazy hush of
the Indian-summer afternoon: the rush of a motor-car on the Boston
Road, the tinkle of the piano and the voice of the youth with the
drugged eyes singing, "And you'll wear a simple gingham gown," from
the yard below the cluck- cluck of the chickens and the cooing of
pigeons.
His first thought was of his sister and of her children, and of
what this bomb, hurled from the clouds, would mean to her. He
thought of Cutler, at the height of his power and usefulness, by
this one disreputable act dragged into the mire, of what disaster
it might bring to the party, to himself.
If, as the woman invited, he helped to "hush it up," and Tammany
learned the truth, it would make short work of him. It would say,
for the murderer of Banf he had one law and for the rich
brother-in-law, who had tried to kill the girl he deceived,
another. But before he gave voice to his thoughts he recognized
them as springing only from panic. They were of a part with the
acts of men driven by sudden fear, and of which acts in their sane
moments they would be incapable.
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