Nancy had shrunk from his growing frenzy no less than from his monstrous decree; but her dilated eyes were fixed on his, utterly regardless of the brace of heavy-caliber revolvers he had produced, apparently to lend a theatrical effect to his words. In truth, the man had no such thought in his mind. He was beyond the reach of any impulse of that sort. His maniacal fury was real enough to convince the most skeptical that he fully intended every word of that murderous threat. Nor did the distracted girl harbor any doubt on that score. Suddenly, awfully, she had been scourged to the verge of a precipice, and it was borne in on her she had no option but to make the heartrending decision which the man whom she had once loved as a father was forcing on her. Her very lips blanched, and she gazed at Willard with all the hatred and passionate scorn of a woman wronged beyond redress. "You--you--" she gasped incoherently, "you are not God! It is God alone who wields such power over men and women. He, and He only, may pronounce a decree of life or death against those who have sinned--not you, a man who sold his own daughter for money!" "Power told you that, did he? The story came well from the mouth of the cheat who robbed me of my property." "But that is a lie. Why demean yourself by uttering such a plea?" "We can argue the rights and wrongs of the matter some other time. Are you coming with me, or not?" "No, a thousand times no!" she almost shrieked. Willard repocketed the pistols, and turned to leave the hut. "That's right!" he chuckled sardonically. "I'd as soon have it that way as the other." Nancy was quite beside herself with agony, or she would never have snatched up the gun and held it pointblank at his back. "Stop!" she screamed. "Stop, or I vow to Heaven I'll fire!" He faced her again, and his frenzy was comparable only with that of the distracted girl who threatened him. "If you want to shoot me you must reload your gun," he said, and his face grew livid, though not with fright. "Do you imagine that an old man like me fears death? Shoot, I tell you, and see if my last curse does not part you and Power. Test his love by telling him you are a murderess--that you have killed your own father. Ask him to help in hiding my body, and then cower in hourly terror, both of you, till a New York bank sends to my lawyer the letter I have left in its charge. Shoot me now, and I'll die happy in the knowledge that Power and you will be tried for my murder." She dropped the gun, and burst into a tempest of weeping; but her tears seemed but to harden Willard into an even more callous and determined mood.