Page:Twilight.djvu/280

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272
TWILIGHT

who was satisfied with the first blood? You have opened the door wide to her exactions …"

"You are taking an entirely wrong view, you are prejudiced. Because you don't like me you blame me whether I am right or wrong."

"You don't know the difference between right and wrong."

"I wasn't going to have my patient upset," he said obstinately.

"Gabriel, listen to me, hear me. Don't be so angry with Peter. I wanted the woman paid to keep quiet. I insisted upon her being paid." And then under her breath she said, "There is such a little time more."

"There is all our lives," Gabriel answered in that deep outraged voice. "All our lives it will be a stain that money was paid. As if we had something to conceal."

His point of view was not theirs, neither Peter's nor Margaret's. They argued and protested, justifying themselves and each other. But it seemed to Gabriel there was no argument. When Margaret pleaded he had to listen, to hold himself in hand, to say as little as possible. Toward Peter Kennedy he was irreconcilable. "A man ought to have known," he said doggedly.

"He wanted to ward off an attack."

Dr. Kennedy went away ultimately, he had that amount of sense. By this time he was at least as