the Indian woman, but Mary Connynge obeyed.

"Madam," said Law, calmly, after the morning meal was at last finished
in silence, "I shall be very glad to have your company for a few
moments, if you please."

Mary Connynge rose and followed him into the open air, her eyes still
fixed upon the dark-crusted stain which had spread upon his tunic. They
walked in silence to a point beyond the cabin.

"You would call her Catharine!" burst out Mary Connynge. "Oh! I heard
you in your very sleep. You believe every lying word Sir Arthur tells
you. You believe--"

John Law looked at her with the simple and direct gaze which the tamer
of the wild beast employs when he goes among them, the look of a man not
afraid of any living thing.

"Madam," said he, at length, calmly and evenly, as before, "what I have
said, sleeping or waking, will not matter. You have tried to kill me.
You did not succeed. You will never try again. Now, Madam, I give you
the privilege of kneeling here on the ground before me, and asking of
me, not my pardon, but the pardon of the woman you have foully stabbed,
even as you have me."

The figure before him straightened up, the blazing yellow eyes sought
his once, twice, thrice, behind them all the fury of a savage soul. It
was of no avail. The cool blue eyes looked straight into her heart. The
tall figure stood before her, unyielding. She sought to raise her eyes
once more, failed, and so would have sunk down as he had said, actually
on her knees before him.

John Law extended a hand and stopped her. "There," said he. "It will
suffice. I can not demean you. There is the child."

"You called her Catharine!" broke out the woman once more in her
ungovernable rage. "You would name my child--"

"Madam, get up!" said John Law, sharply and sternly. "Get up on your
feet and look me in the face. The child shall be called for her who
should have been its mother. Let those forgive who can. That you have
ruined my life for me is but perhaps a fair exchange; yet you shall say
no word against that woman whose life we have both of us despoiled."

CHAPTER X

BY THE HILT OF THE SWORD

Law passed on out at the gate of the stockade and down to the bivouac,
where Pembroke and his men had spent the night.

"Now, Sir Arthur," said he to the latter, when he had found him, "come.
I am ready to talk with you. Let us go apart."

Pembroke joined him, and the two walked slowly away toward the
encircling wood which s