the time."

"It was part of my madness. I was a coward and I thought then there were
reasons why I should feel no pity for Dyck Calhoun. His father injured
mine--oh, badly! But I was a coward, and I've paid the price."

A kinder feeling now took hold of Sheila. After all, what this woman had
done gave happiness into her--Sheila's-hands. It relieved Dyck Calhoun
of shame and disgrace. A jail-bird he was still, but an innocent
jail-bird. He had not killed Erris Boyne. Besides, it wiped out forever
the barrier between them. All her blind devotion to the man was now
justified. His name and fame were clear. Her repugnance of the woman was
as nothing beside her splendid feeling of relief. It was as though the
gates of hell had been closed and the curtains of heaven drawn for the
eyes to see. Six years of horrible shame wiped out, and a new world was
before her eyes.

This woman who had killed Erris Boyne must now suffer. She must bear the
ignominy which had been heaped upon Dyck Calhoun's head. Yet all at once
there came to her mind a softening feeling. Erris Boyne had been rightly
killed by a woman he had wronged, for he was a traitor as well as an
adulterer--one who could use no woman well, who broke faith with all
civilized tradition, and reverted to the savage. Surely the woman's
crime was not a dark one; it was injured innocence smiting depravity,
tyranny and lust.

Suddenly, as she looked at the woman who had done this thing, she, whose
hand had rid the world of a traitor and a beast, fell back on the pillow
in a faint. With an exclamation Sheila lifted up the head. If the
woman was dead, then there was no hope for Dyck Calhoun; any story
that she--Sheila--might tell would be of no use. Yet she was no longer
agitated in her body. Hands and fingers were steady, and she felt for
the heart with firm fingers. Yes, the heart was still beating, and the
pulse was slightly drumming. Thank God, the woman was alive! She rang a
bell and lifted up the head of the sick woman.

A moment later the servant was in the room. Sheila gave her orders
quickly, and snatched up a pencil from the table. Then, on a piece of
paper, she wrote the words: "I, not Dyck Calhoun, killed Erris Boyne."

A few moments later, Noreen's eyes opened, and Sheila spoke to her. "I
have written these words. Here they are--see them. Sign them."

She read the words, and put a pencil in the trembling fingers, and, on
the cover of a book Noreen's fingers trac