. And
vaguely the knowledge gripped him that the dead man back in the trail
was responsible for it all, and that because of this something that had
happened his mistress was crying and his master was gone. And he
believed he should also have gone with Jolly Roger into the blackness
and mystery of the storm, to fight with him against the one creature in
all the world he hated--the dead man who lay back in the thickness of
gloom between the forest walls.

And the Missioner was saying to Nada, in a quiet, calm voice out of
which the tragedies of years had burned all excitement and passion:

"God will forgive him, my child. In His mercy He will forgive Roger
McKay, because he killed Jed Hawkins to save YOU. But man will not
forgive. The law has been hunting him because he is an outlaw, and to
outlawry he has added what the law will call murder. But God will not
look at it in that way. He will look into the heart of the man, the man
who sacrificed himself--"

And then, fiercely, Nada struck up the Missioner's comforting hand, and
Peter saw her young face white as star-dust in the lampglow.

"I don't care what God thinks," she cried passionately. "God didn't do
right today. Mister Roger told me everything, that he was an outlaw,
an' I oughtn't to marry him. But I didn't care. I loved him. I could
hide with him. An' we were coming to have you marry us tonight when God
let Jed Hawkins drag me away, to sell me to a man over on the
railroad--an' it was God who let Mister Roger go back and kill him. I
tell you He didn't do right! He didn't--he didn't--because Mister Roger
brought me the first happiness I ever knew, an' I loved him, an' he
loved me--an' God was wicked to let him kill Jed Hawkins--"

Her voice cried out, a woman's soul broken in a girl's body, and Peter
whimpered and watched the Missioner as he raised Nada to her feet and
went with her into his bedroom, where a few minutes before he had
lighted a lamp. And Peter crept in quietly after them, and when the
Missioner had gone and closed the door, leaving them alone in their
tragedy, Nada seemed to see him for the first time and slowly she
reached out her arms.

"Peter!" she whispered. "Peter--Peter--"

In the minutes that followed, Peter could feel her heart beating.
Clutched against her breast he looked up at the white, beautiful face,
the trembling throat, the wide-open blue eyes staring at the one black
window between them and the outside night. A lull had co