The man who had entered with such violence upon so violent a scene,

stood waiting till the smoke of Pierre's discharge had cleared away,

then, still holding his gun in readiness, he stepped across the room

and bent over the fallen man.

"I've killed him!" he said, just above his breath, and added

presently, "That was the judgment of God." He looked about, taking in

every detail of the scene, the branding iron that had burnt its mark

deep into the boards where Pierre had thrown it down, the glowing fire

heaped high and blazing dangerously in the small room, the woman bound

and burnt, the white night outside the uncurtained window.

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Afterwards he went over to the woman, who drooped in her bonds with

head hanging backward over the wounded shoulder. He untied the silk

scarf and the rope and carried her, still unconscious, into the

bedroom where he laid her on the bed and bathed her face in water.

Joan's crown of hair had fallen about her neck and temples. Her bared

throat and shoulder had the firm smoothness of marble, her lifeless

face, its pure, full lips fallen apart, its long lids closed,

black-fringed and black-browed, owing little of its beauty to color or

expression, was at no loss in this deathlike composure and whiteness.

The man dealt gently with her as though she had been a child. He found

clean rags which he soaked in oil and placed over her burn, then he

drew the coarse clothing about her and resumed his bathing of her

forehead.

She gave a moaning sigh, her face contracted woefully, and she opened

her eyes. The man looked into them as a curious child might look into

an opened door.

"Did you see what happened?" he asked her when she had come fully to

herself.

"Yes," Joan whispered, her lips shaking.

"I've killed the brute."

Her face became a classic mask of tragedy, the drawn brows, horrified

eyes, and widened mouth.

"Pierre? Killed?" Her voice, hardly more than a whisper, filled the

house with its agony.

"Are you sorry?" demanded her rescuer sternly. "Was he in the habit of

tying you up or was this--branding--a special diversion?"

Joan turned her face away, writhed from head to foot, put up her two

hands between him and her agonizing memories.

The man rose and left her, going softly into the next room. There he

stood in a tense attitude of thought, sat down presently with his

long, narrow jaw in his hands and stared fixedly at Pierre. He was

evidently trying to fight down the shock of the spectacle, grimly

telling himself to become used to the fact that here lay the body of a

man that he had killed. In a short time he seemed to be successful,

his face grew calm. He looked away from Pierre and turned his mind to

the woman.




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