the
canoes had long months before blistered and cracked and rotted under
the fierce rays of the Paumotu sun, and the owners lay dead in their
thatched houses; for how could the dead bury the dead?

It came to Rikitea, and Harry Brice and the priests of the Mission went
from village to village trying by such means as lay in their power to
allay the deadly scourge. Brice had seen his little girl die, and then
Loise was smitten, and in a few days Brice saw the imprint of death
stamped upon her features.

*****

As he sat and watched by her at night, and listened to the wild,
delirious words of the fierce fever that held her in its cruel grasp,
he heard her say that which chilled his very heart's blood. At first
he thought it to be but the strange imaginings of her weak and fevered
brain. But as the night wore on he was undeceived.

Just as daylight began to shoot its streaks of red and gold through
the plumed palm-tops, she awoke from a fitful and tortured slumber, and
opened her eyes to gaze upon the haggard features of her husband.

"Loise," he said, with a choking voice, "tell me, for God's sake, the
truth about Baldwin. _Did you kill him?_"

She put her thin, wasted hands over her dark, burning eyes, and Brice
saw the tears run down and wet the pillow.

Then she answered--

"Yes, I killed him; for I loved you, and that night I went mad!"

*****

"Don't go away from me, Harry," she said, with hard, panting breaths;
"don't let me die by myself.... I will soon be dead now; come closer to
me, I will tell you all."

He knelt beside her and listened. She told him all in a few words. As
Baldwin lay in his drunken sleep, she and Maturei had pierced him to the
heart with one of the long, slender, steel needles used by the natives
in mat-making. There was no blood to be seen in the morning, Maturei was
too cunning for that.

Brice staggered to his feet and tried to curse her. The last grey pallor
had deepened on her lips, and they moved and murmured, "It was because I
loved you, Harry."

*****

The sun was over the tops of the cocoanuts when the gate opened, and the
white-haired old priest came in and laid his hand gently on Brice who
sat with bowed figure and hidden face.

"How is your wife now, my good friend?" he asked.

Slowly the trader raised his face, and his voice sounded like a sob.

"Dead; thank God!"

With softened tread the old man passed through to the inner room,
and taking the cold hands o