His slave.... He had commanded her once to help him with his wound.... But his slave no longer, since he himself had set her free! Yet here she was, saying that she stood ready to help him care for his wounds. More, already she was getting warm water, and his old piece of castile soap ... she was rolling up her sleeves.... He glared at her through a mist. He could be sure of nothing, since it _seemed_ to him that she was half smiling! A tender, wistful sort of smile ... as if she had it in her heart to forget injuries done, to forgive him who had done them, and to succor him now that there was little of man-strength left in his body.... Curse her! What right had she to forgive, to look at a man that way? He had asked nothing from her, save that she leave him.... He stirred uneasily. _Had_ she smiled? In this uncertain light one could be certain of nothing; the flickering of the wood fire, casting quick-racing little shadows, breaking into their play with sudden warm, rosy gleamings, made it impossible for him to know if she had smiled, or if that semblance of a smile were but the effect of shifting lights. He held himself rigid, his back to the wall now, his right hand clinched on his knee. "When I am in need of your help ... you who shot me...." She came to him unafraid; she set down the can of warm water on the floor; she began unbuttoning the neck of his shirt. He threw up his hand, the right, hard-clinched, as though he would strike her in the face; but he let the hand fall back to his side. She heard a great sigh. "I told you once," she said quietly, "that I did not shoot you. And I am no more liar than you are, Bruce Standing." He cursed himself for a fool; he was tired and weak and dizzy; his mind was the abode of confusions; he no longer knew what was fact and what illusion. One thing alone he did know, a marvellous thing; there was in her low voice the ring of utter honesty when she said: "I did not shoot you!" ... Liars; all her sex, waging their weak wars from ambush, holding their place in the world through seduction and deceit, all were liars. And yet she troubled him, and with that voice and those eyes she bred uncertainty on top of uncertainty in his uncertain soul. Her steady fingers were unbuttoning his collar.... "Then why," he muttered, jeering and challenging, "did you run as you did after the shot? And how, since you and I were alone in the room...." "The window was open! Under it was the table, my pistol where I had dropped it on the table. You turned your back; I was going to jump out the window and run because for the moment I was afraid! But some one, some man, was there; I saw his hand; it caught up the pistol. It was he who shot you in the back! And when he dropped the pistol back to the table...." Again he demanded fiercely: "But you ran ... _why_? And with the gun in your hand! Why? _Why_, girl, if you are not lying to me?"