that of man
nor animal but of a woman; and with an answering shout Nathaniel sprang
forward to meet there in the edge of the thicket the white face and
outstretched arms of Marion. The girl was swaying on her feet. In her
face there was a pallor that even in his instant's glance sent a chill
of horror through the man and as she staggered toward him, half falling,
her lips weakly forming his name Nathaniel leaped to her and caught her
close in his arms. In that moment something seemed to burst within him
and flood his veins with fire. Closer he held the girl, and heavier he
knew that she was becoming in his arms. Her head was upon his breast,
his face was crushed in her hair, he felt her throbbing and breathing
against him and his lips quivered with the words that were bursting for
freedom in his soul. But first there came the girl's own whispered
breath--"Neil--where is Neil?"

"He is gone--gone from the island!"

She had become a dead weight now and so he knelt on the ground with her,
her head still upon his breast, her eyes closed, her arms fallen to her
side. And as Nathaniel looked into the face from which all life seemed
to have fled he forgot everything but the joy of this moment--forgot all
in life but this woman against his breast. He kissed her soft mouth and
the closed eyes until the eyes themselves opened again and gazed at him
in a startled, half understanding way, until he drew his head far back
with the shame of what he had dared to do flaming in his face.

And as for another moment he held her thus, feeling the quivering life
returning in her, there came to him through that vast forest stillness
the distant deep-toned thunder of a great gun.

"That's Casey!" he whispered close down to the girl's face. His voice
was almost sobbing in its happiness. "That's Casey--firing on St.
James!"

CHAPTER VII

THE HOUR OF VENGEANCE

For perhaps twenty seconds after the last echoes of the gun had rolled
through the forest the girl lay passive in Nathaniel's arms, so close
that he could feel her heart beating against his own and her breath
sweeping his face. Then there came a pressure against his breast, a
gentle resistance of Marion's half conscious form, and when she had
awakened from her partial swoon he was holding her in the crook of his
arm. It had all passed quickly, the girl had rested against him only so
long as he might have held half a dozen breaths and yet there had been
all of a lifetime i