and stood
before him. "Look!" she cried passionately, pointing to the bosom and
shoulders of her white dress, darkly streaked with faded stains and
ominous discoloration,--"look! This is the dress I wore that morning
when I found him lying here,--HERE,--bleeding from your cowardly knife.
Look! Do you see? This is his blood,--my darling boy's blood!--one drop
of which, dead and faded as it is, is more precious to me than the whole
living pulse of any other man. Look! I come to you to-night, christened
with his blood, and dare you to strike,--dare you to strike him again
through me, and mingle my blood with his. Strike, I implore you! Strike!
if you have any pity on me, for God's sake! Strike! if you are a man!
Look! Here lay his head on my shoulder; here I held him to my breast,
where never--so help me my God!--another man--Ah!"--

She reeled against the fence, and something that had flashed in Rance's
hand dropped at her feet; for another flash and report rolled him over
in the dust; and across his writhing body two men strode, and caught her
ere she fell.

"She has only fainted," said Mr. McClosky. "Jinny dear, my girl, speak
to me!"

"What is this on her dress?" said Ridgeway, kneeling beside her, and
lifting his set and colorless face. At the sound of his voice, the color
came faintly back to her cheek: she opened her eyes, and smiled.

"It's only your blood, dear boy," she said; "but look a little deeper,
and you'll find my own."

She put up her two yearning hands, and drew his face and lips down to
her own. When Ridgeway raised his head again, her eyes were closed; but
her mouth still smiled as with the memory of a kiss.

They bore her to the house, still breathing, but unconscious. That night
the road was filled with clattering horsemen; and the summoned skill of
the countryside for leagues away gathered at her couch. The wound, they
said, was not essentially dangerous; but they had grave fears of the
shock to a system that already seemed suffering from some strange and
unaccountable nervous exhaustion. The best medical skill of Tuolumne
happened to be young and observing, and waited patiently an opportunity
to account for it. He was presently rewarded.

For toward morning she rallied, and looked feebly around. Then she
beckoned her father toward her, and whispered, "Where is he?"

"They took him away, Jinny dear, in a cart. He won't trouble you agin."
He stopped; for Miss Jenny had raised herself on her