of Isbel's
revelation the many changes of residence, the sudden moves to unsettled
parts of Texas, the periods of poverty and sudden prosperity, all
leading to the final journey to this God-forsaken Arizona--these were
now seen in their true significance. As far back as she could remember
her father had been a crooked man. And her mother had known it. He
had dragged her to her ruin. That degradation had killed her. Ellen
realized that with poignant sorrow, with a sudden revolt against her
father. Had Gaston Isbel truly and dishonestly started her father on
his downhill road? Ellen wondered. She hated the Isbels with
unutterable and growing hate, yet she had it in her to think, to
ponder, to weigh judgments in their behalf. She owed it to something
in herself to be fair. But what did it matter who was to blame for the
Jorth-Isbel feud? Somehow Ellen was forced to confess that deep in her
soul it mattered terribly. To be true to herself--the self that she
alone knew--she must have right on her side. If the Jorths were
guilty, and she clung to them and their creed, then she would be one of
them.

"But I'm not," she mused, aloud. "My name's Jorth, an' I reckon I have
bad blood.... But it never came out in me till to-day. I've been
honest. I've been good--yes, GOOD, as my mother taught me to be--in
spite of all.... Shore my pride made me a fool.... An' now have I any
choice to make? I'm a Jorth. I must stick to my father."

All this summing up, however, did not wholly account for the pang in
her breast.

What had she done that day? And the answer beat in her ears like a
great throbbing hammer-stroke. In an agony of shame, in the throes of
hate, she had perjured herself. She had sworn away her honor. She had
basely made herself vile. She had struck ruthlessly at the great heart
of a man who loved her. Ah! That thrust had rebounded to leave this
dreadful pang in her breast. Loved her? Yes, the strange truth, the
insupportable truth! She had to contend now, not with her father and
her disgrace, not with the baffling presence of Jean Isbel, but with
the mysteries of her own soul. Wonder of all wonders was it that such
love had been born for her. Shame worse than all other shame was it
that she should kill it by a poisoned lie. By what monstrous motive
had she done that? To sting Isbel as he had stung her! But that had
been base. Never could she have stopped so low except in a moment of
tremend