night."

He handed it over, and Shon saw inside it his own name and hers.

"My God!" he said. "Did she know? Tell me she didn't know, Pierre?"

"No, she did not know. I have truth to speak to night. I was jealous,
mad, and foolish, and I left her. My boat was found upset. They
believed I was drowned. 'Bien,' she waited until yesterday, and then
she took you--but she was my wife; she is my wife--and so you see!"

The Irishman was deadly pale.

"It's an avil heart y' had in y' then, Pretty Pierre, and it's an avil
day that brought this thing to pass, and there's only wan way to the end
of it."

"So, that is true. There is only one way," was the reply; "but what
shall that way be? Someone must go: there must be no mistake. I have
to propose. Here on this table we lay a revolver. We will give up these
which we have in our pockets. Then we will play a game of euchre, and
the winner of the game shall have the revolver. We will play for a life.
That is fair, eh--that is fair?" he said to those around.

King Kinkley, speaking for the rest, replied: "That's about fair. It
gives both a chance, and leaves only two when it's over. While the woman
lives, one of you is naturally in the way. Pierre left her in a way that
isn't handsome; but a wife's a wife, and though Shon was all in the glum
about the thing, and though the woman isn't to be blamed either, there's
one too many of you, and there's got to be a vacation for somebody.