"No, I dare tell you the truth--that I did!" she replied, meeting the fiery glance of his sombre eyes fearlessly. In the midst of his concentrated rage--and Colonel Jeff in wrath was well known to be dangerous--he could not help admiring this frail, fair, delicate woman's dauntless courage. "I had no chance of speaking to you alone," she continued, "or I would have told you--explained to you----" "I want no explanation," he said, harshly, bitterly; "I know enough." [Illustration: "'STAY!' SHE EXCLAIMED."] "Stay!" she exclaimed, lifting her fair head with a royal gesture. "That man, the man whom I helped to a hiding-place to save his life--for you know they would have killed him, they came here for his death----" "And if they did," he interposed, "what is his life or death to you?" "That man," she continued, waving his interruption aside, "did me a cruel wrong--you know it well. He killed my love for him. Love once dead rises no more. I have no grain of love left for the man who insulted, wronged, deserted me. But I tell you now that _he_ wronged me less than _you_ do if you say to me that you 'know enough!' You do _not_ know enough. You must know all. Rick, you have said you loved me. You have made me love you. You shall hear me now!" She spoke not pleadingly, but with passionate resolution. "What have you to say?" he rejoined, sternly still, but less bitterly. "That if you love me you must trust me! If you love me you must respect me! The woman who could turn a helpless, hunted fugitive--even a stranger--from her doors would be unworthy of love or respect." "This man was no stranger!" "He came to me as one, not dreaming that I lived here. Would you ask me, _because_ he was not a stranger, to revenge myself for a wrong of years ago by refusing to him the help I would have given to any stranger? You could not think that I would stoop to so base a revenge as to hand him over to death when I would have given up no other man who stood in his place? I would not turn a _dog_ away that came to me for help and shelter. He came here, not knowing whose house this was--came to ask for food and help because he was exhausted, famishing. It was as much a surprise to him to find me here as it was to me to see who the man was who asked me for shelter. And I promised it to him, and I kept my word. He told me what he had done, and that the Vigilance Committee were on his track. I've lived here long enough to know what that means! I would not see the man who appealed to me to save him lawlessly murdered. He has done wrong; he deserves punishment; but he does _not_ deserve the fate they would have dealt to him." "They'd have strung him up on that big tree outside your gate," said Colonel Jeff, grim still, but relenting, "and serve him right!" "I did not think he deserved death," rejoined Barbara, firmly; "I risked--more than my life"--her voice quivered for the first time--"to save him."