"Why, Jan, I don't say a word against her; but there was a difference." "She thought of no difference. She only thought of you. I thought of my own life." "Thank God if you did, dearest!" "I'm glad you came. I wanted to tell you I had tried." "I need nothing to make me love you more, my beauty and delight," he said, pressing her to him. She looked at him with a sort of amazement, making a faint effort to push him away. "It was so lucky," he went on, "that I didn't see you, or I should have rushed at him, and he would most likely have killed you. As it was----" He paused, for it seemed impossible to speak of poor Nellie's hurt as a happy outcome. "Come," he resumed, "let's think no more about it. The wretched man is dead and Nellie Fane is getting better, and we--why, we, Jan, have one another." With sudden impatience she rose, unlacing his arms from about her. "Who is she?" she cried. "Who is she? Why should she give her life for you? I loved you, and I was afraid. She wasn't afraid." Dale thought that he began to understand a little better. Jealousy was a feeling he had read about, and seen, and written about. If Jan were jealous, he could undertake to reassure her. "She's a very old and good friend of mine," he said, "and it was just like her brave, unselfish way to----" "What had you done to make her love you so?" "My sweetest Jan, surely you can't think I----" "Oh, no, no, no! I don't mean that. I'm not so mean as that." Dale wondered whether this passionate disclaimer of jealousy did not come in part from self-delusion, though he saw that Janet made it in all genuineness. "You have made her love you--oh, of course you have! Why did she follow you? why did she come between you and the shot? I loved you, too, Dale. Ah! how I loved--how I thought I loved you! But her love was greater than mine." "Come, Jan, come; you exaggerate. You must be calm, dearest. Nellie and I are very fond of one another, but----" "You know she loves you--you know she loves you to death." "My darling, I don't know anything of the sort. But supposing she did--well, I am very sorry, very deeply grieved if she is unhappy; but I don't love her--or any other woman in the world but you, Jan. If she had saved my life a thousand times, it would make no difference. You, Jan, you are the breath of my life and the pulse of my blood." He spoke with passion, for he was roused to combat this strange idea that threatened all his joy. As she stood before him, in her fairness and distress, he forgot his searchings of heart, his tenderness for Nellie, everything, except that she, and she alone, was the woman to be his, and neither another nor she herself should prevent it. Looking at him, she read this, or some of it, in his eyes, for she shrank back from him, and, clasping her hands, moaned: "Don't, don't! You must go to her--you belong to her. She saved you, not I. You are hers, not mine." "Jan, this is madness! She is nothing to me; you are all the world."