ch other. Longstreet, nervous and impatient for whatever
explanations were coming, fidgeted constantly until Sanchia began
speaking.

'When I learned what had happened,' she said, 'I thought at first that
I could not live to endure it. I could have shrieked; I could have
killed myself. To think that I had been the cause of it all. Oh, it
was hideous! But then I knew that I must live and that I must seek
somehow to make reparation. All of my life, as long as I live, I shall
hope and try and work to undo what I have done.'

She was watching them all through her handkerchief, which she was using
to dab her eyes; of Longstreet she never for an instant lost sight.
She saw the eagerness in his eyes and knew that it was an eagerness to
believe in her. She saw Helen's anger and contempt; she saw Carr's
black looks; she saw, too, how Howard kept his eyes always on Helen's
face, and she read what was so easy to read in them. It was her
business, her chief affair in life just now, to keep her two eyes wide
open; hence she saw, too, the look which Helen had flashed at the
cattleman. And while she observed all of this she was speaking
rapidly, almost incoherently, as though her one concern lay in the
tragic error she had made. Had she been less than a very clever woman
who had long lived, and lived well, by her wits, she must have found
the situation too much for her. But no one of her hearers, excepting
possibly the one chiefly interested, failed to do Sanchia Murray
justice for her cleverness. As it was, she did not fear the outcome
from the outset.

She told how she had been so overjoyed at Longstreet's news; how, for
that dear child Helen's sake, she had rejoiced; how she had for a
little felt less lonely in sharing a secret meant for a wonderful
birthday surprise; how she had yearned to help in this glowing hour of
happiness. She had tried to help Mr. Longstreet with Mr. Harkness at
the court-house; she had learned that he was out of town; she had been
told that his assistant was at the Montezuma House. In spite of her
abhorrence of going to such a place she had gone, carried away by the
high tide of excitement. And there she had been tricked into
introducing Mr. Longstreet to no less a terrible creature than Monte
Devine. She hastened to add that she told Mr. Longstreet that she did
not know this man; he would bear her out in this; she too had been
tricked. But she would never, never forgive herself.

'No