d was thought of death for me. Then he talked a
little to me, cheerfully, with that directness and force characteristic
of him always, showing me that the danger was past, and that I would now
be rapidly on the mend. I discovered that I cared little whether I was
on the mend or not. When I had passed the state of somber unrealities
and then the hours of pain and then that first inspiring flush of
renewed desire to live, an entirely different mood came over me. But I
kept it to myself. I never even asked why, for three days, Sally never
entered the room where I lay. I associated this fact, however, with what
I had imagined her shrinking from me, her intent and pale face, her
singular manner when occasion made it necessary or unavoidable for her
to be near me.

No difficulty was there in associating my change of mood with her
absence. I brooded. Steele's keen insight betrayed me to him, but all
his power and his spirit availed nothing to cheer me. I pretended to be
cheerful; I drank and ate anything given me; I was patient and quiet.
But I ceased to mend.

Then, one day she came back, and Steele, who was watching me as she
entered, quietly got up and without a word took Diane out of the room
and left me alone with Sally.

"Russ, I've been sick myself--in bed for three days," she said. "I'm
better now. I hope you are. You look so pale. Do you still think, brood
about that fight?"

"Yes, I can't forget. I'm afraid it cost me more than life."

Sally was somber, bloomy, thoughtful. "You weren't driven to kill
George?" she asked.

"How do you mean?"

"By that awful instinct, that hankering to kill, you once told me these
gunmen had."

"No, I can swear it wasn't that. I didn't want to kill him. But he
forced me. As I had to go after these two men it was a foregone
conclusion about Wright. It was premeditated. I have no excuse."

"Hush--Tell me, if you confronted them, drew on them, then you had a
chance to kill my uncle?"

"Yes. I could have done it easily."

"Why, then, didn't you?"

"It was for Diane's sake. I'm afraid I didn't think of you. I had put
you out of my mind."

"Well, if a man can be noble at the same time he's terrible, you've
been, Russ--I don't know how I feel. I'm sick and I can't think. I see,
though, what you saved Diane and Steele. Why, she's touching happiness
again, fearfully, yet really. Think of that! God only knows what you did
for Steele. If I judged it by his suffering as you lay th