ly, that every woman was a
vampire or a parasite,--"a rag and a bone and a hank of hair"!

And now there lay before him indeed (and the words took on a new and
more terrible meaning) "a rag and a bone and a hank of hair." Yes,
this was all that was left of her. This was what he had made of the
most joyous and most beautiful creature that had ever crossed his
path; this was the best he could do for one who had had the misfortune
to love him and the courage to tell him so. This was his work! His
memory went back to that day before the post-office. How beautiful she
was then, how strangely beautiful, coming out of that halo of light by
the side of the golden outlaw. Something had stirred within him then,
as it had stirred again and again: at Huntington's when she reached
for his revolver; in his cottage that last afternoon of her nursing.
And he had repulsed it, put it down, and trampled on it, as if it had
been an execrable thing instead of the very treasure he had been
seeking all his life without knowing what he sought. And now he
recognized it for what it was--too late!

He bent nearer to her, listening.

"Philip! Philip!" she was saying, in tender, coaxing accents,
with that quivering of her chin that had many times been almost
irresistible.

Then came the final break-up of everything within him. He felt lifted
as upon a flood, and a wild and passionate longing surged through all
his being. He leaned swiftly over her, and clasped her in his arms,
and pressed her hot cheek against his own. And then--it was
unendurable; he felt one of her arms softly encircling his neck. There
was just one gentle pressure, and then the arm fell to her side, and
her head sank weakly away from him. He laid her back tenderly on her
hard bed.

He sat up again, looking at her and listening. She rambled on in
half-coherent speech. She had not heard him cry out her name; or if
she had heard him it had been only a part of her fevered dreams. And
this was the crowning bitterness: that he should want to speak to her,
to tell her that he loved her, and she could not hear; that he was too
late, and she would never know.

He leaped to his feet in a whirling tempest of rage. He stumbled to
the mouth of the cave, and thrust himself half through the barricade,
and looked out into the wilderness of snow, and stood shaking his fist
at it, quivering with passion, and uttering the wildest imprecations
upon the world, upon the outlaw, and upon himse