oat; back of his head that vital stream was
wasting, enlarging the pool in the hollowed plank near Ollie's foot.

"He's dead!" she whispered.

Again, in a flash, that quick feeling of lightness, almost joyful
liberty, lifted her. Isom was dead, dead! What she had prayed for had
fallen. Cruel, hard-palmed Isom, who had gripped her tender throat, was
dead there on the floor at her feet! Dead by his own act, in the anger
of his loveless heart.

"I'm afraid he is," said Joe, dazed and aghast.

The night wind came in through the open door and vexed the lamp with
harassing breath. Its flame darted like a serpent's tongue, and Joe,
fearful that it might go out and leave them in the dark with that
bleeding corpse, crossed over softly and closed the door.

Ollie stood there, her hands clenched at her sides, no stirring of pity
in her heart for her husband with the stain of blood upon his harsh,
gray beard. In that moment she was supremely selfish. The possibility of
accusation or suspicion in connection with his death did not occur to
her. She was too shallow to look ahead to that unpleasant contingency.
The bright lure of liberty was in her eyes; it was dancing in her brain.
As she looked at Joe's back the moment he stood with hand on the door,
her one thought was:

"Will he tell?"

Joe came back and stood beside the lifeless form of Isom, looking down
at him for a moment, pity and sorrow in his face. Then he tiptoed far
around the body and took up his hat from the floor where it had fallen
in Isom's scramble for the sack of gold.

"What are we going to do?" asked Ollie, suddenly afraid.

"I'll go after the doctor, but he can't help him any," said Joe. "I'll
wake up the Greenings as I go by and send some of them over to stay with
you."

"Don't leave me here with it--don't leave me!" begged Ollie. "I can't
stay here in the house with it alone!"

She shrank away from her husband's body, unlovely in death as he had
been unloved in life, and clung to Joe's arm.

But a little while had passed since Isom fell--perhaps not yet five
minutes--but someone had heard the shot, someone was coming, running,
along the hard path between gate and kitchen door. Ollie started.

"Listen!" she said. "They're coming! What will you say?"

"Go upstairs," he commanded, pushing her toward the door, harshness in
his manner and words. "It'll not do for you to be found here all dressed
up that way."

"What will you tell them--what will y