The cold, consummate completeness with which the woman detailed her carefully considered plans turned Joan's heart to stone. It chilled her and left her shivering in the awful heat. For one moment, one weak moment when her woman's spirit quailed before the deadly array of facts, she felt faint, and one hand sought the table for support. But with a tremendous effort she recovered herself. It was the thought of Buck which helped her. She could not let him fall into the trap so well laid by this--this creature, without an effort to save them both. In a flash her mind pictured the scene of the Padre's capture. She saw the fort surrounded by the "deputies." She saw the Padre shackled before he could rise from his blankets. She saw Buck, under cover of ruthless firearms, hurl himself to the rescue and pay for his temerity with his life. In a sudden overwhelming passion of appeal she flung herself on her knees before the terrible old woman.
"Aunt, aunt!" she cried. "You cannot be so heartless, so cruel. There is a mistake. You are mistaken. The Padre swears to his innocence, and if you knew him as I know him, as all this countryside knows him, you must believe. He is not capable of murder. My father committed suicide. Think, think of all that went before his death, and you, too, will see that everything points to suicide. Oh, aunt, think of what you are doing. The plans you have made must involve the man I love. A perfectly innocent man, as even you know. If my father was all your world, so is Buck all mine. He will defend the Padre. I know him. And as you say he will pay the penalty with his life. If you have one grain of pity, if you have one remaining thought of love for my dead father, then spare this man to his daughter. Where is the right that you should involve Buck? You do not even know him. Oh, aunt, you have lived all these twenty years with me. In your own way you have cared for me. Sacrifice your enmity against this innocent man. It will give you a peace of mind you have never known before, and will give me the happiness of the man I love."
Mercy's eyes lit with fine scorn as she caught at Joan's final words.
"The happiness of the man you love!" she cried with passionate anger, "Why should I give you your man's love? Why should I help any woman to a happiness I have never been allowed to taste? Perhaps it pleases me to think that your Buck will be involved. Have I not warned you of the disaster which you have permitted him to court? Listen, girl, not one detail of all that which I have waited for will I forego. Not one detail. When it is accomplished nothing on earth matters to me. The sooner I am off it the better. The sooner I leave this world for other realms the sooner I shall be able to pursue those others who have injured me and passed on to--a fresh habitation. Do you understand? Do you understand that I will brook no interference from you? Peace, child, I want no more talk. When this night is over I leave here--nor shall I ever willingly cross your path again. You are another woman's child, and so long as you live, so long as we are brought into contact, the sting of the past must ever remain in my heart. Go to your bed, and leave me to watch and wait until the morning."