The Golden Woman

She paused, breathing hard with the emotion which the effort of her denunciation had inspired, and in that pause she beheld a vision of devilish hatred and purpose such as she could never have believed possible in her aunt.

"You would rebel! You challenge me!" cried Mercy, springing from her chair with a movement almost unbelievable in so ailing a creature. "You are mad--utterly mad. It is not I who am insane, but you--you. You call me a mountebank. What has your life been? Has not everything I have told you been part of it? Even here--here. Did I not tell you you could not escape your curse? Have you escaped it? And you think you can escape it now." She laughed suddenly, a hideous laugh which set Joan shuddering. "The love you have found must prove itself. You say it is the love that will save you. I tell you it is not. Nothing can save this man now. Nothing can save your Buck if he interferes now. Nothing can save you, if you interfere now. I tell you I have taken every care that there is no loophole of escape. No earthly power can serve you."

"No earthly power?" Joan echoed the words unconsciously, while she stood fascinated by that terrible face so working with malignant hatred.

But only for a moment it held her. Her love was stronger that all her woman's fears. Her Buck was in danger, and that other. The warning. She must get that warning to them.

Suddenly she leant forward upon the table as though to emphasize what she had to say.

"Whatever happens to-night, aunt," she cried, her big eyes glowing in a growing excitement, her red-gold hair shining like burnished copper in the light from the lamp which was so near to it, "I hope God may forgive you this terrible wicked spirit which is driving you. Some day I may find it in my heart to forgive you. That which I have to do you are driving me to, and I pray God I may succeed."

As the last word left her lips she seized the lamp from the table, and, with all her strength, hurled it through the open window. As it sped it extinguished itself and crashed to the ground outside, leaving the room in utter darkness. At the same instant she sprang to the sill of the open window, and flung herself from the room. As she, too, fell to the ground a shot rang out behind her, and she felt the bullet tear through her masses of coiled hair.

But her excitement was at fever heat. She waited for nothing. Her lover's life was claiming every nerve in her body. His life, and that other's. She scrambled to her feet and dodged clear of the window, just as a chorus of harsh execration reached her ears. She looked toward the barns and hay corrals whence the sound came, and, on the instant, a hideous terror seized upon her. The barn was afire! The hay had just been fired! And, in the inky blackness of the night, the ruddy glow leapt suddenly and lit up the figures of a crowd of men, now shouting and blaspheming at the result of the shot from the house.