's terrible to have him here, I can't help it. I'm a
prisoner, here against my will. I couldn't leave him out there alone
to die."

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 hear