"I have prayed to God that some day he might bring me face to face with the person who sold my brother's life. He has granted me my prayer. But it never entered my wildest dreams that it could be the woman I married. I never questioned your past. To me it was sufficient that you had taught me the meaning of love. To me you must be all you seemed. No more, no less. God help me, I had no imagination to tell me that so fair a body could contain so foul a heart. Were you not my wife, were you a man, I should know how to deal with that which lies between us. As it is you must thank the difference in our sex for that which nothing else could have done for you. As yet I have not had the time to arrange the details of our future. To-morrow, perhaps, things will have cleared in my mind. I shall sleep to-night over at Bud's----" "Oh, Jeff, Jeff, have mercy. I----" "Mercy? Mercy?" A sudden fire blazed up where only a frigid light had shone. The man's tones were alive with a fury of passion. "Did you have mercy? Was there one merciful, womanly emotion in your cruel, selfish heart when you sent those men, that man to his death for ten thousand filthy dollars? Pray to God for mercy, not to me." A curious sullen light dawned in the woman's eyes. But even as it dawned it faded with the man's movement to depart. "You--you won't leave me?" she pleaded. "Oh, Jeff, I love you so. What I did was in ignorance, in cruel, selfish longing. I had been reduced to the life of a drudge without hope, without even a house fit for existence. I believed I had honest right. I believed even that my act was a just one. Jeff, Jeff, don't leave me, don't drive me out of your life. I cannot bear it. Anything, anything but that. My God, I don't deserve it. I don't--true. Jeff--Jeff!" Her final appeal came as the man, without a word, passed through the open window. She followed him in a desperate hope. But the hope was vain. She saw him mount the fresh horse which had been brought round and left at the tying post. As he turned the beast about to depart, just for one instant he looked in her direction. "I will see you again in the morning. By that time I shall have decided what is best for us both." He waited for no more. There was nothing to wait for. He lifted the reins and his horse set off. The dust rose up and screened him from view. Once more Elvine was standing on the veranda. Once more her gaze was following the trail of rising dust. But there was no fever of suspense in her beautiful eyes now. There were not even tears. The blow had fallen. Fate had caught up with her. Its merciless onrush had overwhelmed her. She was crushed. She was broken under its sledge-hammer blow. She stood drooping, utterly, utterly broken and spiritless before the man's swift, brief indictment and action.