Just the same, I suppose, as it would be in a battle; a man is going to shoot you, and you shoot him first, and I don't suppose it ever troubles you afterwards." "Of course I don't mean that I blame you, Mark; but it does seem shocking." "I don't suppose you would think that, Millicent, if a burglar, who had taken one shot at you and was about to finish you with another, was cut short in the operation by a shot from my pistol.

I believe that your relief and thankfulness would be so great that the idea that it was a shocking thing for me to do would not as much as enter your head." "I wish you had shot the other man as well as the one you did, Mark," the Squire said, as he walked with his son down to Reigate to attend the inquest the next morning on the man he had brought in.

Mark looked at his father in surprise.
"There is no doubt I hit him, father," he said; "but I should not think that he will be likely to trouble us again." "I wish I felt quite sure of that.

Do you know that I have a strong suspicion that it was Arthur Bastow ?" Mark had, of course, heard of Bastow's escape, but had attached no great importance to it.

The crime had taken place nearly eight years before, and although greatly impressed at the time by the ill doings of the man, the idea that he would ever return and endeavor to avenge himself on his father for the part he had taken had not occurred to him.