She knew that
Alessandro had no knife, and had gone forward with no hostile
intent; but she knew nothing beyond that. Only the murderer
himself knew that the dialogue which he had reported to the judge
and jury, to justify his act, was an entire fabrication of his own,
and that, instead of it, had been spoken but four words by
Alessandro, and those were, "Senor, I will explain;" and that even
after the first shot had pierced his lungs, and the blood was
choking in his throat, he had still run a step or two farther, with his
hand uplifted deprecatingly, and made one more effort to speak
before he fell to the ground dead. Callous as Farrar was, and clear
as it was in his mind that killing an Indian was no harm, he had not
liked to recall the pleading anguish in Alessandro's tone and in his
face as he fell. He had not liked to recall this, even before he heard
of this rich Mexican brother-in-law who had appeared on the
scene; and now, he found the memories still more unpleasant. Fear
is a wonderful goad to remorse. There was another thing, too,
which to his great wonder had been apparently overlooked by
everybody; at least, nothing had been said about it; but the bearing
of it on his case, if the case were brought up a second time and
minutely investigated, would be most unfortunate.
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