“I take that promise back forever, oh, God!” Her hand dropped. The cruel light died slowly out of her eyes, and she turned and knelt by the prostrate man, and began pulling open his coat. Frale took one step toward her.

“Cass,” he said, with shaking voice, “I’ll he’p you.”

Her hands clinched into David’s coat as she held it. “Go back. Don’t you touch even his least finger,” she cried, looking up at him from where she knelt like a creature hurt to the heart, defending its own. “You’ve done your work. Take your face where I never can see it again.”

He still stood and looked down on her. She turned again to David, and, thrusting her hand into his bosom, drew it forth with blood upon it.