regone your vengeance on--on Dyer?

"Yes."

"But--your actions--your words--your guns--your terrible looks!... They
don't seem foregoing vengeance?"

"Jane, now it's justice."

"You'll--kill him?"

"If God lets me live another hour! If not God--then the devil who drives
me!"

"You'll kill him--for yourself--for your vengeful hate?"

"No!"

"For Milly Erne's sake?"

"No."

"For little Fay's?"

"No!"

"Oh--for whose?"

"For yours!"

"His blood on my soul!" whispered Jane, and she fell to her knees.
This was the long-pending hour of fruition. And the habit of years--the
religious passion of her life--leaped from lethargy, and the long months
of gradual drifting to doubt were as if they had never been. "If you
spill his blood it'll be on my soul--and on my father's. Listen."
And she clasped his knees, and clung there as he tried to raise her.
"Listen. Am I nothing to you?"

"Woman--don't trifle at words! I love you! An' I'll soon prove it."

"I'll give myself to you--I'll ride away with you--marry you, if only
you'll spare him?"

His answer was a cold, ringing, terrible laugh.

"Lassiter--I'll love you. Spare him!"

"No."

She sprang up in despairing, breaking spirit, and encircled his neck
with her arms, and held him in an embrace that he strove vainly to
loosen. "Lassiter, would you kill me? I'm fighting my last fight for
the principles of my youth--love of religion, love of father. You don't
know--you can't guess the truth, and I can't speak ill. I'm losing
all. I'm changing. All I've gone through is nothing to this hour. Pity
me--help me in my weakness. You're strong again--oh, so cruelly, coldly
strong! You're killing me. I see you--feel you as some other Lassiter!
My master, be merciful--spare him!"

His answer was a ruthless smile.

She clung the closer to him, and leaned her panting breast on him, and
lifted her face to his. "Lassiter, I do love you! It's leaped out of my
agony. It comes suddenly with a terrible blow of truth. You are a man!
I never knew it till now. Some wonderful change came to me when you
buckled on these guns and showed that gray, awful face. I loved you
then. All my life I've loved, but never as now. No woman can love like
a broken woman. If it were not for one thing--just one thing--and yet! I
can't speak it--I'd glory in your manhood--the lion in you that means to
slay for me. Believe me--and spare Dyer. Be merciful--great as it's in
you to be great.... Oh, li