ng
can save this man now. Nothing can save your Buck if he interferes
now. Nothing can save you, if you interfere now. I tell you I have
taken every care that there is no loophole of escape. No earthly power
can serve you."

"No earthly power?" Joan echoed the words unconsciously, while she
stood fascinated by that terrible face so working with malignant
hatred.

But only for a moment it held her. Her love was stronger that all her
woman's fears. Her Buck was in danger, and that other. The warning.
She must get that warning to them.

Suddenly she leant forward upon the table as though to emphasize what
she had to say.

"Whatever happens to-night, aunt," she cried, her big eyes glowing in
a growing excitement, her red-gold hair shining like burnished copper
in the light from the lamp which was so near to it, "I hope God may
forgive you this terrible wicked spirit which is driving you. Some day
I may find it in my heart to forgive you. That which I have to do you
are driving me to, and I pray God I may succeed."

As the last word left her lips she seized the lamp from the table,
and, with all her strength, hurled it through the open window. As it
sped it extinguished itself and crashed to the ground outside, leaving
the room in utter darkness. At the same instant she sprang to the sill
of the open window, and flung herself from the room. As she, too, fell
to the ground a shot rang out behind her, and she felt the bullet tear
through her masses of coiled hair.

But her excitement was at fever heat. She waited for nothing. Her
lover's life was claiming every nerve in her body. His life, and that
other's. She scrambled to her feet and dodged clear of the window,
just as a chorus of harsh execration reached her ears. She looked
toward the barns and hay corrals whence the sound came, and, on the
instant, a hideous terror seized upon her. The barn was afire! The hay
had just been fired! And, in the inky blackness of the night, the
ruddy glow leapt suddenly and lit up the figures of a crowd of men,
now shouting and blaspheming at the result of the shot from the house.

For one moment Joan stood still, trembling in every limb, heedless of
the vengeful creature behind her. She was overwhelmed by the now utter
and complete hopelessness of her case. Her horses were in the barn
which had been fired. And they were her only means of reaching her
lover.

Then in a moment, as she beheld the shouting crowd coming toward the
ho