Then they rode on, all silent, thinking. It was near dawn when they rode up along the sounding-board and put in at Last's. Billy reached up tender arms and took Tharon off El Rey, and for the first time she gave herself wearily into them as if she were done. As she opened the door into her own dusky room the pale Virgin, touched by a silver shaft of the sinking moon, stood out in startling, ethereal beauty, Her meek hands folded on Her breast. Tharon Last stumbled forward and sank in a heap at Her feet, her arms about the statue's knees. "Hail--Mary--intercede for--him--" she faltered, and then the shining Virgin, the dim mystery of the shadowy room, faded out to leave her for the first time in her strong life, a bit of senseless clay. When she again opened her eyes the little winds of day were fanning her cheeks and old Anita was tugging at her shoulders, voluble with fright. To the riders of Last's the tragedy was nothing more than any other that they had known in Lost Valley. They went about their work as usual. Only Billy was filled with a sickening anguish at the knowledge that he was not able to offer one smallest saving straw to the girl in the big house--for Billy knew. All day Tharon sat like a rock in her own room, staring with unseeing eyes at the blank whitewashed walls. She did not yet know what ailed her, why this killing, more than that of poor Harkness, should make her sick to her soul's foundations. Yet it was so. Even the thought of her sworn duty was vague before her for a time. Then it seemed to come forward out of the mass of fleeting memories--Kenset that day at Baston's steps shapely, trim, halted--Kenset laughing over the little meal beside the table where the books lay--Kenset grasping her shoulder when she whirled to mount El Rey and challenge the Stronghold single-handed--to come forward like a calming, steadying thing and turn the pain to purpose. There was no one now to hold her back, no vital hands to press hers upon a beating heart, to make her untrue to her given word! Now she could go out, reckless and grim in her utter disregard of the outcome, and kill Courtrey where he stood. The time had come. There should be another cross in the granite beneath the pointing pine. As if the whirling universe settled back to its ordered place the right proportion came back to her vision, the breath seemed to lighten her holden lungs. Once again the girl arose and steadied herself, smoothed her tawny hair, looked at her hands to find them free from the shaking that had weakened them. She dressed herself and went out among her people, quiet and pale.