me, her natural protector, for I will not permit it."

At the words, quick as lightning, Monteith pulled from his pocket a
loaded revolver and pointed it full at his rival. With a cry of terror,
Frida flung herself between them, and tried to protect her lover with
the shield of her own body. But Bertram gently unwound her arms and held
her off from him tenderly. "No, no, darling," he said slowly, sitting
down with wonderful calm upon a big grey sarsen-stone that abutted upon
the pathway; "I had forgotten again; I keep always forgetting what
kind of savages I have to deal with. If I chose, I could snatch
that murderous weapon from his hand, and shoot him dead with it in
self-defence--for I'm stronger than he is. But if I did, what use? I
could never take you home with me. And after all, what could we either
of us do in the end in this bad, wild world of your fellow-countrymen?
They would take me and hang me; and all would be up with you. For your
sake, Frida, to shield you from the effects of their cruel taboos,
there's but one course open: I must submit to this madman. He may shoot
me if he will.... Stand free, and let him!"

But with a passionate oath, Robert Monteith seized her arm and flung her
madly from him. She fell, reeling, on one side. His eyes were bloodshot
with the savage thirst for vengeance. He raised the deadly weapon.
Bertram Ingledew, still seated on the big round boulder, opened his
breast in silence to receive the bullet. There was a moment's pause. For
that moment, even Monteith himself, in his maniac mood, felt dimly aware
of that mysterious restraining power all the rest who knew him had
so often felt in their dealings with the Alien. But it was only for a
moment. His coarser nature was ill adapted to recognise that ineffable
air as of a superior being that others observed in him. He pulled the
trigger and fired. Frida gave one loud shriek of despairing horror.
Bertram's body fell back on the bare heath behind it.

XII

Mad as he was with jealousy, that lowest and most bestial of all the
vile passions man still inherits from the ape and tiger, Robert Monteith
was yet quite sane enough to know in his own soul what deed he had
wrought, and in what light even his country's barbaric laws would regard
his action. So the moment he had wreaked to the full his fiery vengeance
on the man who had never wronged him, he bent over the body with
strangely eager eyes, expecting to see upon it some ev