What you ain't got," he added bitterly, "is common gratitude." He turned away from her and went into the house, and Jean sat down upon the edge of the porch and stared away at the dimming outline of the hills, and wondered what had come over her.
Three years on this ranch, seeing her uncle every day almost, living under the same roof with him, talking with him upon the everyday business of life,--and to-night, for the first time, the forbidden subject had been opened.

She had said things that until lately she had not realized were in her mind.

She had never liked her uncle, who was so different from her father, but she had never accused him in her mind of unfairness until she had written something of the sort in her ledger.

She had never thought of quarrelling,--and yet one could scarcely call this encounter less than a quarrel.

And the strange part of it was that she still believed what she had said; she still intended to do the things she declared she would do.