Joan saw with startling distinctness the bits of balsam and pine ather feet and pale pink daisies in the grass, and then the dry witheredboughs. She was in the cabin.
"Girl!... I'm hungry--for you!" he breathed, hoarsely. And turning hertoward him, he embraced her, as if his nature was savage and he had touse a savage force.
If Joan struggled at all, it was only slightly, when she writhed andslipped, like a snake, to get her arm under his as it clasped herneck. Then she let herself go. He crushed her to him. He bent herbackward--tilted her face with hard and eager hand. Like a madman, withhot working lips, he kissed her. She felt blinded--scorched. But herpurpose was as swift and sure and wonderful as his passion was wild. Thefirst reach of her groping hand found his gun-belt. Swift as light herhand slipped down. Her fingers touched the cold gun--grasped with thrillon thrill--slipped farther down, strong and sure to raise the hammer.Then with a leaping, strung intensity that matched his own she drew thegun. She raised it while her eyes were shut. She lay passive under hiskisses--the devouring kisses of one whose manhood had been denied thesweetness, the glory, the fire, the life of woman's lips. It was amoment in which she met his primitive fury of possession with a woman'sprimitive fury of profanation. She pressed the gun against his side andpulled the trigger.
A thundering, muffled, hollow boom! The odor of burned powder stungher nostrils. Kells's hold on her tightened convulsively, loosenedwith strange, lessening power. She swayed back free of him, still withtight-shut eyes. A horrible cry escaped him--a cry of mortal agony. Itwrenched her. And she looked to see him staggering amazed, stricken, atbay, like a wolf caught in cruel steel jaws. His hands came away fromboth sides, dripping with blood. They shook till the crimson dropsspattered on the wall, on the boughs. Then he seemed to realize and heclutched at her with these bloody hands.
"God Almighty!" he panted. "You shot me!... You--you girl!... Youshe-cat... You knew--all the time... You she-cat!... Give me--that gun!"
"Kells, get back! I'll kill you!" she cried. The big gun, outstretchedbetween them, began to waver.
Kells did not see the gun. In his madness he tried to move, to reachher, but he could not; he was sinking. His legs sagged under him, lethim down to his knees, and but for the wall he would have fallen. Then achange transformed him. The black, turgid, convulsed face grew white andghastly, with beads of clammy sweat and lines of torture. His strangeeyes showed swiftly passing thought--wonder, fear, scorn--evenadmiration.
"Joan, you've done--for me!" he gasped. "You've broken my back!... It'llkill me! Oh the pain--the pain! And I can't stand pain! You--yougirl! You innocent seventeen-year-old girl! You that couldn't hurt anycreature! You so tender--so gentle!... Bah! you fooled me. The cunningof a woman! I ought--to know. A good woman's--more terrible thana--bad woman.... But I deserved this. Once I used--to be.... Only, thetorture!... Why didn't you--kill me outright?... Joan--Randle--watchme--die! Since I had--to die--by rope or bullet--I'm glad you--you--didfor 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 droveher 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 notsee Joan. He forgot her. The white shaded out of his face, leaving agray like that of his somber eyes. Spirit, sense, life, were fading fromhim. The quivering of a racked body ceased. And all that seemed left wasa lonely soul groping on the verge of the dim borderland between lifeand death. Presently his shoulders slipped along the wall and he fell,to lie limp and motionless before Joan. Then she fainted.