"Let be!" she cried, lifting her hands towards Harper in inconceivable anxiety. "A quarrel with him will not help you and it may greatly injure _me_. Alfred, what am I to expect? Something dreadful, I can see. Your face is not the face of one who forgives, or who sees in a gift of money an adequate recompense for a cowardly withdrawal." "You read rightly," said he. "Your fortune will be accepted by the Chief, but he will never forget the cowardice. What faith can he put in one who prefers her own happiness to the general good? You must prepare for punishment." "Punishment!" broke scornfully from Harper's lips. She hushed him with a look before which even he stood aghast. "You will only waste words," she cried. "If he says punishment, I may expect punishment." And turning back to Ransom, in a burst of longing and passion, she raised her eyes to him again, saying, "You do not forgive because you do not realize my danger. But you will realize it when I am gone." Ransom, under a sudden releasement of the tension of doubt and awe which had hitherto held him speechless, gave her one wild stare, then caught her to his breast. She uttered a happy sigh. "Ah!" she murmured in the soft ecstasy and boundless relief of the moment, "how I have learned to love you during the fears and agonies of this awful week." "And I you," was the whispered answer. "Too deeply," he impetuously added in louder tones, "to let any harm come to you now." She smiled; but desperation fought with love in that smile. Gently releasing herself, she cast another glance at Hazen, upon whose gray and distorted countenance there had settled a great gloom, and passionately exclaimed: "Had law or love been able to interfere with the judgment of our Chief, I should not have been driven into the herculean task of deceiving you and the whole world as to my real identity." Then with slowly drooping head, and the manner of one who has heard his doom pronounced, she hoarsely whispered; "The death-mark was scrawled upon my door last night. This is never done without the consent of the Chief. No one can save me now, not even my own brother." "False. I scrawled those lines," declared Ransom. "It was a test--" "Which _I_ commanded you to make," put in Hazen. Then in fainter and less strenuous tones, "She's right. Georgian Ransom is doomed; no one can save her." "False again!" This time it was Harper who interposed. "I can and will. You forget that I know the name of your Chief. Conspiracy such as you hint at is indictable in this country. I am a lawyer. I shall protect, not only your sister, but her money." The smile he received in return evinced no ordinary scorn.