Morgan with quick bound. She checked it, waiting for him to draw up
beside her again. "I'd hate to think, Mr. Morgan--oh, you can't want me
alone to take the responsibility for the killing of those men!"

Morgan rode on in silence, head bent in humiliation, in the sad
disappointment that fell on him like a blow.

"If it could have been done, if I could have brought peace and safety to
the women of Ascalon without bloodshed, I'd have done it. I wanted to
tell you, I tried to tell you----"

"Don't--don't tell me any more, Mr. Morgan--please!"

She drew across the road, widening the space between them as she spoke.
Perhaps this was due to the unconscious pressure on the rein following
her shrinking from his side, from the thought of his touch upon her
hand, but it wounded Morgan's humiliated soul deeper than a thousand
unkind words.

"No, I'll never tell you," he said sadly, but with dignity that made the
renunciation noble.

Rhetta seemed touched. She drew near him again, reaching out her hand as
if to ease his hurt.

"It was different before--before _that night_! you were different, all
of us, everything. I can't help it, ungrateful as I seem. You'll forgive
me, you'll understand. But you were _different_ to me before then."

"Yes, I was different," Morgan returned, not without bitterness in his
slow, deep, gentle voice. "I never killed a man for--I never had killed
a man; there was no curse of blood on my soul."

"Why is it always necessary to kill in Ascalon?" she asked, wildly,
rebelliously. "Why can't anything be done without that horrible ending!"

"If I knew; if I had known," he answered her, sadly.

"Forgive me, Mr. Morgan. You know how I feel about it all."

"I know how you feel," he said, offering no word of forgiveness, as he
had spoken no word of reminder where a less generous soul might have
spoken, nor raised a word of blame. If he had a thought that she must
have known when she urged him to the defense of the defenseless in
Ascalon, what the price of such guardianship must be, he kept it sealed
in his heart.

They rode on. The lights of Ascalon came up out of the night to meet
their eyes as they raised the last ridge. There Morgan stopped, so
abruptly that she rode on a little way. When he came up to her where she
waited, he was holding out his hand.

"Here is my badge--the city marshal's badge," he said. "If you can bear
the thought of touching it, or touch it without a thought, I wish you