fallen. Then a change transformed him. The black, turgid, convulsed
face grew white and ghastly, with beads of clammy sweat and lines of
torture. His strange eyes showed swiftly passing thought--wonder,
fear, scorn--even admiration.

"Joan, you've done--for me!" he gasped. "You've broken my back! ...
It'll kill me! Oh the pain--the pain! And I can't stand pain! You--
you girl! You innocent seventeen-year-old girl! You that couldn't
hurt any creature! You so tender--so gentle! ... Bah! you fooled me.
The cunning of a woman! I ought--to know. A good woman's--more
terrible than a--bad woman. ... But I deserved this. Once I used--to
be. ... Only, the torture! ... Why didn't you--kill me outright? ...
Joan--Randle--watch me--die! Since I had--to die--by rope or bullet--
I'm glad you--you--did for me. ... Man or beast--I believe--I loved
you!"

Joan dropped the gun and sank beside him, helpless, horror-stricken,
wringing her hands. She wanted to tell him she was sorry, that he
drove her to it, that he must let her pray for him. But she could
not speak. Her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth and she seemed
strangling.

Another change, slower and more subtle, passed over Kells. He did
not see Joan. He forgot her. The white shaded out of his face,
leaving a gray like that of his somber eyes. Spirit, sense, life,
were fading from him. The quivering of a racked body ceased. And all
that seemed left was a lonely soul groping on the verge of the dim
borderland between life and death. Presently his shoulders slipped
along the wall and he fell, to lie limp and motionless before Joan.
Then she fainted.