he responded. "Did she tell you, sis? Did she tell you your
Will was dead? Eh?" He leaned forward, his eyes sparkling. "I'm
glad--real glad. He was sure bad, an' no use to you. She told you?"

But suddenly the poor woman buried her face in her hands, as though to
shut out the hideous thoughts his words brought back to her.

"Yes, yes," she cried, "I know he's dead, and they're trying Jim for
it. Oh, God, it's awful! They say he did it. But he didn't, I know he
didn't. He only said he'd do it if Will had killed you. He didn't kill
you, so Jim didn't do it. He wouldn't. He couldn't. And I sent him out
there to the bluff. And if they hang him it's my doing. Oh, Jim, Jim!"
She fell to moaning and rocking herself as she stood. "But they
mustn't kill him. They won't. Will they? Say they won't, Elia. Oh,
Jim, Jim! I want you so badly. I--I----"

"You're sweet on him, sis?" Elia said, with a gleam of fiendish
satisfaction in his wonderful eyes.

"I sent him," reiterated the woman, ignoring his question, and lost in
her own misery. "Oh, Jim, Jim!"

For a time at least the boy had quite forgotten his bodily sufferings.
His enjoyment was monstrous, unholy.

"Say, sis," he went on, "the trial's over. I've just come from
there."

Eve looked up, startled. Every nerve in her body was quivering with a
sudden tension.

"Yes, yes?" she cried.

"Yes, it's sure over," the boy added, prolonging his sister's agony.

"Well? They--they acquitted him?" There was something absolutely
imploring in her manner. It might well have moved a heart of stone.

But Elia's heart, if he possessed such an organ, bore the brand of the
fiend. He nodded first. Then, as he saw the joy leap to his sister's
eyes he shook his head vigorously, and the result pleased him.

"He's got to die," he said.

The woman suddenly reeled, and fell on her knees at the table, with
her face buried on her outstretched arms. Elia watched her for some
moments. He felt that here was some recompense for what he had gone
through.

"You was kind o' sweet on him, sis," he said presently. "That's why I
tried to help him some. I kind o' like him, too. I feel sort o' queer
Jim's goin' to get hanged--hanged, sis, at dawn." He paused, but
beyond the racking sobs that shook the woman's frame she made no
movement. "I sure feel queer about it, tho'. Y'see he came right up
when Will had nigh kicked the life out o' me, an' he hit Will a smash
that knocked him cold. Gee, it was a