And still the eye of no Outlier sought any other eye, only I saw Trastevera look up from her drawing and, leaning a little past the others, gaze steadily toward some spot beyond her with a long, compelling look. Before I could follow it to its point of attention, almost before Persilope had done speaking, I saw Noche getting on his feet, blinking a little as though the light abashed him, and fumbling embarrassedly at his girdle like a child. “If I should be counted worthy ... if I could be trusted again....” He shook with eagerness. “Tribesmen, it is my right, for it was through my doddering old tongue the secret escaped.... Ask him.” He pointed to Ravenutzi. “He said so; ask _them_.” His great, gnarly arm, like the stump of an oak, was stretched toward Prassade and Mancha, and it trembled like an oak when the axe is at its roots. “Ask them if he did not say so at the Place of Caves ... though I would have died rather....” “It was from _my_ hand the Ward was loosed ... under _my_ eyes he seduced her mind ... fool, fool!” This was the voice of Waddyn, who rose up in his place behind Noche, tall and very gaunt, as some old wolf of the wilderness. He struck himself on the breast. “We are old men,” he said, “shall we have discredit at the last? Chief, are we accepted?” In their eagerness he and Noche had struck hands together like two children come to beg a holiday, dropping apart as the murmur of acceptance ran among the Outliers and made them men again. “You are accepted,” announced Persilope. So they sat down again, each in his place, quite contented. There was a little pause here. I was trying from where I sat to have a glimpse of Ravenutzi, to see how this affected him, if at all, when I heard some disturbance behind me, and a voice crying out: “No, no, I cannot lose you both!” I turned, and I saw Prassade stooping to disengage his knees from his wife’s clinging, and holding her from him by the shoulders, begin to speak. “I also....” “Outliers,” he said, and by the hollowness of his voice and the sinking of his cheek under the red beard they saw what havoc grief and disgrace had made in him, “Outliers, it is through my blood dishonor came, and one of my blood must cure it. There is none but me.” There was a general outcry of dismayed protest and assurance. “Not you, Prassade, not you....” “No fault of yours....” “She has paid....” “She was but a child, she has paid in full....” And then from the woman at his feet: “Think of _me_, Prassade.” “Think of what I think on day and night,” cried Prassade, “and let me go.” “Prassade,” said the young chief, greatly troubled, “in that which we propose to do, when this business is settled, I shall have great need, as in the past I have had great benefit, from your interest and advice....”