Diane of the Green Van

By the pool Ronador leaped suddenly, his face quite colorless save where the flame of fever burned in his cheeks.

"That Voice!" he said, standing in curious attitude of listening. "You hear it, Tregar? Always--always it comes so in the quietest hours. Tell him! Tell him! Why should I tell him? What is he to me? I may not purchase relief at the price of any man's respect. Only Tregar knows. Hush!--In God's name, hush! Thou shalt not kill! Thou shalt not kill!" He seemed, without conscious effort, to be repeating the words of this Voice with which he held this terrible communion, and waved Tregar back with an imperious gesture of defiance. Facing Mic-co he flung out his arm.

"I am a murderer in the sight of God and Man!" he choked. "I murdered my cousin Theodomir for a dream of empire. I can not forget--Oh, God! I can not forget. The Voice bids me tell!"

He dropped wildly to his knees, his eyes imploring.

"Oh, God!" he prayed with pallid lips, "hear this, my prayer. I have paid in black hours of bitter suffering. I have played and lost and the fire of life is but ashes in my hand. Give me peace--peace!"

He stayed so long upon his knees that Tregar touched him gently on the shoulder.

"Ronador," he said gently. "Come. You are very ill and know not what you say."

Ronador staggered blindly to his feet. Once more he waved the Baron aside and took up his terrible dialogue with the inner Voice.

"The Voice! The Voice!" he whispered. "Thou shalt not kill! Thou shalt not kill! You lie!" he cried in a sudden outburst of terrible fierceness. "He was not a fool. He loved men more than the mockery and cant of courts. He loved--he trusted me--and I betrayed him. Who knew when he fled wildly away from the pomp and inequalities he hated? I! Who watched for his secret letters? I! Who came to America when his letter of homesick pleading came? I! I! I! Who killed him when conscience and duty would have sent him back to the court of his father? I, his cousin whom he loved above all men. You lie. I did love him. I was drunk with the royal glitter ahead. I craved it even as he hated it. Thou shalt not kill! Thou shalt not kill! Mercy! Mercy! I can not bear it."

He fell groveling upon the floor and crawled to Mic-co's feet.

"The Voice bids me tell!" he whispered, clutching fearfully at Mic-co's hand. "Twice, since, I would have killed to keep this thing of the candlestick from creeping back and back until that thing of long ago lay uncovered and I disgraced! . . . Theodomir hid in the Seminole village. No--no, you must listen--the Voice bids me tell or lose my reason. I came there at his bidding--his marriage to the Indian girl had been unhappy. He was homesick and this fair land of liberty had a rotten core. I struck him down and fled. You will heal and fight the Voice--"