"Josephine, the devil never bid so high for me before in his life as
he's bidding for me now. And there's only one thing in the way; he's
bid too late."

Her eyes flashed with injured resentment. "Ah, you! you dawn't know
not'n'--" But he interrupted:

"Stop, I don't mean more than just what I say. Six years ago--six and
a half--I met a man of a kind I'd never met, to know it, before. You
know who' I mean, don't you?"

"Bonaventure?"

"Yes. That meeting made a turning-point in my life. You've told me
that whatever is best in you, you owe to him. Well, knowing him as I
do, I can believe it; and if it's true, then it's the same with me;
for first he, and then you, have made another man out of me."

"Ah, naw! Bonaventure, may_be_; but not me; ah, naw!"

"But I tell you, yes! you, Josephine! I'm poor sort enough yet; but I
could have done things once that I can't do now. There was a time when
if some miserable outlaw stood, or even seemed, maybe, to stand
between me and my chances for happiness, I could have handed him over
to human justice, so called, as easy as wink; but now? No, never any
more! Josephine, I know that man whose picture I've just looked at. I
could see you avenged. I could lay my hands, and the hands of the law,
on him inside of twenty-four hours. You say you can't marry till the
law has laid its penalties on him, or at least while he lives and
escapes them. Is that right?"

Zosephine had set her face to oppose his words only with unyielding
silence, but the answer escaped her:

"Yass, _'tis_ so. 'Tis ri-ght!"

"No, Josephine. I know you _feel_ as if it were; but you don't _think_
so. No, you don't; I know you better in this matter than you know
yourself, and you don't think it's right. You know justice belongs to
the State, and that when you talk to yourself about what _you_ owe to
justice, it means something else that you're too sweet and good to
give the right name to, and still want it. You don't want it; you
don't want revenge, and here's the proof; for, Josephine, you know,
and I know, that if I--even without speaking--with no more than one
look of the eye--should offer to buy your favor at that price, even
ever so lawfully, you'd thank me for one minute, and then loathe me to
the end of your days."

Zosephine's face had lost its hardness. It was drawn with distress.
With a gesture of repulsion and pain she exclaimed:

"I di'n' mean--I di'n' mean--Ah!"

"What? private revenge? No, of