h flinched as though under a lash.

Pete put out his hand uncertainly; his face was drawn with pain.
"Sylvie--stop. You _must_ stop. You're too cruel. He did lie to you, but
remember, that was because he--"

The brilliant black eyes flashed back at him.

"Because he loved me, you were going to say? When you love a woman, do
you try to ruin her life? Do you creep up in the dark under cover of her
blindness and touch her with some dreadful, poisonous wound? You
don't know my horror of that man, Pete. Oh, he kissed--kissed me!" She
shivered. "A murderer! Yes, a murderer. Oh, Ham Rutherford, if I could
only _make_ you see yourself! If I could give you my eyes when they
opened, and I saw Pete's beauty and Bella's sweetness and the horrible
ugliness of you! And then, day by day--you see, I was afraid to let you
know that I _had_ seen you. I was in terror of you, of what you might
do to me. I was afraid of you all; you had all deceived me. Day by day
I learned the utter distortion of you, mind, body, and soul. How could
I help but--but--" She faltered and half turned to Pete, holding out
her hands. Her indignation at the treachery practiced upon her, an anger
that had grown in silence to unbearable heat, had spent itself in words.
She was all for consolation now--for sympathy. But Pete stepped back
from her. He was looking at Hugh, and his clear, young face was an open
wound.

Hugh pushed himself up and slowly lifted his face. It was then that he
saw Sylvie's hands stretched out to Pete. He started--no one knew what
the convulsive movement meant; but as he started--the gun tripped him.
He caught it up carelessly, blindly. There was a flash--a crash. Pete
leaped and bent, holding his arm. Blood spurted between his fingers,
soaking his wet sleeve; and Sylvie, crying aloud, wrapped him in
trembling, protective arms.

"I'm not much hurt," he said half dazedly. "It--it was an accident. He
didn't mean it. I was looking at him. The gun went off. He didn't shoot
at me.... _Hugh_!"

The man was staring straight ahead of him, and now he drew his hand
across his eyes, the fingers crooked as though they tore a veil.

"Now," he said, "I do see myself just as I am. Yes, I did shoot at you.
Yes, I think I meant to kill you. I must have meant to kill you. That's
the truth. For the second time I'm a murderer. Yet now, as God lives,
even if I am down in the dust, I'll lay hold of my stars. I'm going to
walk out of your lives so that the