Nola lowered her candle and stared at Frances, her eyes big and blank of everything but a wild expression that Frances had read as fear. "Will he die?" she whispered. "Yes; you are to have your heartless way at last. He will die, and his blood will be on this house, never to be washed away!" "Why didn't you come back when we called you--both of you?" Nola drew near, reaching out an appealing hand. Frances shrank from her, to bend quickly over Macdonald when he groaned and moved his head. "Put out that light--it's in his eyes!" she said. Nola blew out the candle and came glimmering into the room in her soft white gown. "Don't blame me, Frances, don't blame any of us. Mother and I wanted to save you both, we tried to stop the men, and we could have held them back if it hadn't been for Chance. Chance got three of them to go, the others--" "They paid for that!" said Frances, a little lift of triumph in her voice. "Yes, but they--" "Chance didn't do it, I tell you! If he says he did it he lies! It was--somebody else." "The soldiers?" "No, not the soldiers." "I thought maybe--I saw one of them on guard in front of the house as we came in." "He's guarding me, I'm under arrest, I tell you. The soldiers have nothing to do with him." Nola stood looking down at Macdonald, who was deathly white in the weak light of the low, shaded lamp. With a little timid outreaching, a little starting and drawing back, she touched his forehead, where a thick lock of his shaggy hair fell over it, like a sheaf of ripe wheat burst from its band. "Oh, it breaks my heart to see him dying--it--breaks--my--heart!" she sobbed. "You struck him! You're not--you're not fit to touch him--take your hand away!" Frances pushed her hand away roughly. Nola drew back, drenched with a sudden torrent of penitential tears. "I know it, I know it!" she confessed in bitterness, "I knew it when he took me away from those people in the mountains and brought me home. He carried me in his arms when I was tired, and sang to me as we rode along there in the lonesome night! He sang to me, just like I was a little child, so I wouldn't be afraid--afraid--of him!" "Oh, and you struck him, you struck him like a dog!" "I've suffered more for that than I hurt him, Frances--it's been like fire in my heart!" "I pray to God it will burn up your wicked pride!" "We believed him, mother and I believed him, in spite of what Chance said. Oh, if you'd only come back then, Frances, this thing wouldn't have happened!" "I can't see what good that would have done," said Frances, wearily; "there are others who don't believe him. They'd have got him some time, just like they got him--in a coward's underhanded way, never giving him a chance for his life."