"It's as I said, Jeff. Just as I said," she declared solemnly. She drew a deep breath. She was about to take a plunge which might bear her she knew not whither. "Oh, I could get mad with you for that. I could so, Jeff. I know the story of it. You've told it yourself, and I don't guess you've spared her any. But you're blinding yourself because you're crazy to do so. You're blinding yourself to all sense of justice to defend a wretched scallawag who happened to be your brother. Say, you're trying to fix on your wife, the woman who loves you, and who you guess you love, all the dirt you should heap on the worthless man who lived by theft, and maybe, even, was a murderer. Say, don't speak. Not just a single word. Guess you can say all you need when I'm through," she cried, as the man, with eyes ablaze, sought to break in. "When I'm through I'll listen. Say, bring this right home here. We're being robbed by cattle thieves. I don't guess they're better or worse than your brother. What if he'd been one of this gang? If you'd got this gang, with him in it? Would you've let him go and hanged the others? Tell me. Tell me right here and now." The man sprang from his seat. He moved away to the window. "You're talking foolish," he flung over his shoulder. "It's not the position. My brother's deserts aren't in question. It's Evie's act. My wife's act. You're a woman and defend her. How could you be expected to see a man's point of view?" "There can be no man's point of view in it," Nan cried warmly. "I guess there's just one point. The point of right and justice. In justice she's not done a thing to make you act this way. For your sake, for hers, for the sake of justice you'll have to go back to her." The man swung round. "You'd have me go back to her?" he cried in fierce derision. "Say, you're crazy! Go back to her feeling as I do?" "Feeling as you've no right to feel," Nan retorted swiftly. Then in a flash her voice changed, dropping to a note of deep tenderness and sympathy. "Say, Jeff, won't you go back? Won't you?" she pleaded. "Think of all it means to her, to you. Think of a poor woman driven to the depths of despair for a shadow you've nursed in your brain these years. That's what it comes to. I know. Oh, Jeff, as sure as ther's just a great big God above us you'll pay for it if you don't. You surely will." The man shifted his gaze. The lids of his eyes drooped and hid from the waiting girl all that passionate feeling he had not hesitated to display. She wondered as she waited. She was fearful, too. In the man every sort of emotion was surging through him in a chaotic tangle. Nothing seemed clear; anger, revolting, even hatred, all fought for place. And through it all the pleading tones of the girl would not be denied. After a moment he suddenly flung out his arms. "I--I just can't, Nan!" he cried desperately.