on.

"You started this war. My brother wouldn't 'a' shot Jim Marcum if it
hadn't been fer you. You killed Jim--your own husband--an' you killed
_me_. An' now you want me to fergive you--you!" She raised her right
hand as though with it she would hurl the curse behind her lips, and the
widow, with a cry, sprang for the bony fingers, catching them in her own
hand and falling over on her knees at the bedside.

"Don't, Becky, don't--don't--_don't!_"

There was a slight rustle at the back window. At the other, a pistol
flashed into sight and dropped again below the sill. Turning, the girl
saw Dave's bushy black head--he, too, with one elbow on the sill and the
other hand out of sight.

"Shame!" she said, looking from one to the other of the two men, who had
learned, at last, the bottom truth of the feud; and then she caught the
sick woman's other hand and spoke quickly.

"Hush, Becky," she said; and at the touch of her hand and the sound of
her voice, Becky looked confusedly at her and let her upraised hand sink
back to the bed. The widow stared swiftly from Jim's brother, at one
window, to Dave Day at the other, and hid her face on her arms.

"Remember, Becky--how can you expect forgiveness in another world,
unless you forgive in this?"

The woman's brow knitted and she lay quiet. Like the widow who held her
hand, the dying woman believed, with never the shadow of a doubt, that