ve redoubled. It was the saving brightness of a
darkening hour. Fay turned now to Jane in childish worship. And Jane
at last found full expression for the mother-longing in her heart. Upon
Lassiter, too, Mrs. Larkin's death had some subtle reaction. Before,
he had often, without explanation, advised Jane to send Fay back to any
Gentile family that would take her in. Passionately and reproachfully
and wonderingly Jane had refused even to entertain such an idea. And
now Lassiter never advised it again, grew sadder and quieter in his
contemplation of the child, and infinitely more gentle and loving.
Sometimes Jane had a cold, inexplicable sensation of dread when she saw
Lassiter watching Fay. What did the rider see in the future? Why did he,
day by day, grow more silent, calmer, cooler, yet sadder in prophetic
assurance of something to be?

No doubt, Jane thought, the rider, in his almost superhuman power of
foresight, saw behind the horizon the dark, lengthening shadows that
were soon to crowd and gloom over him and her and little Fay. Jane
Withersteen awaited the long-deferred breaking of the storm with a
courage and embittered calm that had come to her in her extremity. Hope
had not died. Doubt and fear, subservient to her will, no longer gave
her sleepless nights and tortured days. Love remained. All that she had
loved she now loved the more. She seemed to feel that she was defiantly
flinging the wealth of her love in the face of misfortune and of
hate. No day passed but she prayed for all--and most fervently for her
enemies. It troubled her that she had lost, or had never gained,
the whole control of her mind. In some measure reason and wisdom and
decision were locked in a chamber of her brain, awaiting a key. Power
to think of some things was taken from her. Meanwhile, abiding a day of
judgment, she fought ceaselessly to deny the bitter drops in her cup,
to tear back the slow, the intangibly slow growth of a hot, corrosive
lichen eating into her heart.

On the morning of August 10th, Jane, while waiting in the court for
Lassiter, heard a clear, ringing report of a rifle. It came from the
grove, somewhere toward the corrals. Jane glanced out in alarm. The day
was dull, windless, soundless. The leaves of the cottonwoods drooped, as
if they had foretold the doom of Withersteen House and were now ready to
die and drop and decay. Never had Jane seen such shade. She pondered
on the meaning of the report. Revolver shots ha