new appeals, half fearing she could not hold
his attention. She seized on that unprecedented look of compassion.

"But, Randall, you'll let him off--let him off for me--for my sake." In
her eagerness she rose and fluttered to the desk, standing before him.
He whirled his chair about, and the look of commiseration had gone.

"No, no, no! You can't understand, Nell. I couldn't let him off if I
wanted to. It's fate, its retribution--the sins of the father--it's
scriptural, I tell you--" His eyes were gleaming again with steely
implacability.

"But for me, Randall, for my sake, for me alone--not thinking of him?"

"Ah, lady, set me a harder task, but one of dignity--as difficult, as
dangerous as you like, so it has some dignity. But not that. Here"--he
gracefully extended the handle of the dagger to her--"slay me an' you
will--the blade is keen--a toy, but deadly--I'll die smiling if you
wish. But don't ask for that cub's happiness. Don't rob me of my pay,
Nell, my pay for all I've endured from him, his boastings and
snivelings, and his detestable handshakes. Don't talk rot, I say,
even if you must die."

Again she set herself to plead, desperation feeding the fire in her head
until she knew not her words. She was conscious only of a torrent of
speech, coaxing, imploring, wheedling, even threatening. But all she
evoked was the steady, smiling negative, his head shaken unwittingly to
the rhythm of her phrases.

She stopped at last, panting, striving to keep back the passionate words
of entreaty that still formed, crushing them down in a maddened
consciousness of their impotence. She stared wildly, feeling only a
still stubborn determination. Ewing would soon come--yet it seemed that
she had no resource save appeal. She felt this and raged against it,
striding away from Teevan across the room. For the first time in her
gentle life she was feeling the sensation she thought a man must feel in
fighting. She had an impulse to strike blindly, to wound, to beat down
with her hands. Without volition she measured her antagonist and
wondered deliriously if she could throw him to the floor. He seemed so
small to her, and hateful--hateful and small enough to kill. She closed
her eyes to shut him out, but opened them again quickly, for everything
rocked in the darkness. She incessantly pictured this creature, naked in
his poverty of manhood, smiling up at Ewing, the friendly one, who stood
bowed down, blighted and broken of heart.