t me to fergive you--you!" She raised her right
hand as though with it she would hurl the curse behind her lips, and the
widow, with a cry, sprang for the bony fingers, catching them in her own
hand and falling over on her knees at the bedside.

"Don't, Becky, don't--don't--_don't!_"

There was a slight rustle at the back window. At the other, a pistol
flashed into sight and dropped again below the sill. Turning, the girl
saw Dave's bushy black head--he, too, with one elbow on the sill and the
other hand out of sight.

"Shame!" she said, looking from one to the other of the two men, who had
learned, at last, the bottom truth of the feud; and then she caught the
sick woman's other hand and spoke quickly.

"Hush, Becky," she said; and at the touch of her hand and the sound of
her voice, Becky looked confusedly at her and let her upraised hand sink
back to the bed. The widow stared swiftly from Jim's brother, at one
window, to Dave Day at the other, and hid her face on her arms.

"Remember, Becky--how can you expect forgiveness in another world,
unless you forgive in this?"

The woman's brow knitted and she lay quiet. Like the widow who held her
hand, the dying woman believed, with never the shadow of a doubt, that
somewhere above the stars, a living God reigned in a heaven of
never-ending happiness; that somewhere beneath the earth a personal
devil gloated over souls in eternal torture; that whether she went
above, or below, hung solely on her last hour of contrition; and that
in heaven or hell she would know those whom she might meet as surely as
she had known them on earth. By and by her face softened and she drew a
long breath.

"Jim was a good man," she said. And then after a moment:

"An' I was a good woman"--she turned her eyes towards the girl--"until
Jim married _her_. I didn't keer after that." Then she got calm, and
while she spoke to the widow, she looked at the girl.

"Will you git up in church an' say before everybody that you knew I was
_good_ when you said I was bad--that you lied about me?"

"Yes--yes." Still Becky looked at the girl, who stooped again.

"She will, Becky, I know she will. Won't you forgive her and leave peace
behind you? Dave and Jim's brother are here--make them shake hands.
Won't you--won't you?" she asked, turning from one to the other.

Both men were silent.

"Won't you?" she repeated, looking at Jim's brother.

"I've got nothin' agin Dave. I always thought that she"--h