Then Frale rose and
looked down upon the pallid, upturned face and inert body, which lay as
he had crushed it down. As he stood thus, a white figure, bareheaded and
alone, came swiftly through the wall of laurel which hid them and
pausing terror-stricken in the open space, looked from one to the other.

[Illustration: _"I take it back--back from God--the promise I gave you
there by the fall." Page 171._]

For an instant Cassandra waited thus, as if she too were struck dead
where she stood. Then she looked no more on the fallen man, but only at
Frale, with eyes immovable and yet withdrawn, as if she were searching
in her own soul for a thing to do, while her heart stood still and her
throat closed. Those great gray eyes, with the green sea depths in them,
began to glow with a cruel light, as if she too could kill,--as if they
were drawing slowly from the deep well of her being, as it were, a sword
from its scabbard wherewith to cut him through the heart. Her hand stole
to her throat and pressed hard. Then she lifted it high above her head
and held it, as if in an instant more one might see the invisible sword
flash forth and strike him. Frale cried out then, "Don't, don't curse
me, Cass," and lifted his arm to shield his face, while great beads of
moisture stood out on his face.

"It's not for me to curse, Frale." Her voice was low and clear. "Curses
come from hell, like what you been carrying in your heart that made you
do this." Her voice grew louder, and her hand trembled and shut as if it
grasped something. "I take it back--back from God--the promise I gave
you there by the fall." Then, looking up, her voice grew low again,
though still distinct. "I take that promise back forever, oh, God!" Her
hand dropped. The cruel light died slowly out of her eyes, and she
turned and knelt by the prostrate man, and began pulling open his coat.
Frale took one step toward her.

"Cass," he said, with shaking voice, "I'll he'p you."

Her hands clinched into David's coat as she held it. "Go back. Don't you
touch even his least finger," she cried, looking up at him from where
she knelt like a creature hurt to the heart, defending its own. "You've
done your work. Take your face where I never can see it again."

He still stood and looked down on her. She turned again to David, and,
thrusting her hand into his bosom, drew it forth with blood upon it.

"I say, you Frale!" she cried, holding it toward him, quivering with the
ferocity