ire of life is but ashes in my hand. Give me peace--peace!"

He stayed so long upon his knees that Tregar touched him gently on the
shoulder.

"Ronador," he said gently. "Come. You are very ill and know not what
you say."

Ronador staggered blindly to his feet. Once more he waved the Baron
aside and took up his terrible dialogue with the inner Voice.

"The Voice! The Voice!" he whispered. "Thou shalt not kill! Thou
shalt not kill! You lie!" he cried in a sudden outburst of terrible
fierceness. "He was not a fool. He loved men more than the mockery
and cant of courts. He loved--he trusted me--and I betrayed him. Who
knew when he fled wildly away from the pomp and inequalities he hated?
I! Who watched for his secret letters? I! Who came to America when
his letter of homesick pleading came? I! I! I! Who killed him when
conscience and duty would have sent him back to the court of his
father? I, his cousin whom he loved above all men. You lie. I did
love him. I was drunk with the royal glitter ahead. I craved it even
as he hated it. Thou shalt not kill! Thou shalt not kill! Mercy!
Mercy! I can not bear it."

He fell groveling upon the floor and crawled to Mic-co's feet.

"The Voice bids me tell!" he whispered, clutching fearfully at Mic-co's
hand. "Twice, since, I would have killed to keep this thing of the
candlestick from creeping back and back until that thing of long ago
lay uncovered and I disgraced! . . . Theodomir hid in the Seminole
village. No--no, you must listen--the Voice bids me tell or lose my
reason. I came there at his bidding--his marriage to the Indian girl
had been unhappy. He was homesick and this fair land of liberty had a
rotten core. I struck him down and fled. You will heal and fight the
Voice--"

Mic-co bent and raised the groveling figure.

"Peace!" he said, his face very white. "We will heal and quiet the
Voice forever. Come!" Gently he led the sick man away.

"He will sleep now, I think," he said a little later. "A drug is best
when a Voice is mocking?--"

The Baron leaned forward and caught Mic-co's arm in a grasp of iron.

"Who are you," he whispered, "that you suffer with him now? You are
white and shaking. Who are you that you know the tongue of my country?"

Mic-co sighed.

"I," said he sadly, "am that man he thought to kill!"

White-faced, the Baron stared at the snowy beard and hair and the fine,
dark eyes.

"Theodomir!" he whispe