“Coward! You shall fight me! I will call you coward wherever I meet you.”
“No one, who knows us both, will believe you.”
It was not the taunt, so much as the look of deep affection which John gave Phyllis, that irritated the angry man beyond further control. In a moment he had struck John, and John had cocked his pistol. In the same moment Phyllis was between them, looking into John’s eyes, and just touching the dangerous weapon. John trembled all over and dropped it. “Go your ways safely, Richard Fontaine. I could kill you as easy as a baby, but for Phyllis’s sake you are safe.”
“But I will make you fight, sir;” and as he uttered the threat, he attempted to push Phyllis aside. Ere one could have spoken, she had faced Richard and fallen. Her movement in some way had fired the cocked pistol, and, with a cry of horror, he flung it from him. John lifted her. Already the blood was staining the snowy muslin that covered her breast. But she was conscious.
“Kiss me, John, and go. It was an accident, an accident, dear. Remember that.”
“Stay with her, Richard. I will go for a doctor, my horse is saddled at the door;” and John rode away, as men ride between life and death. Richard sat in a stupor of grief, supporting the white form that tried to smile upon him, until the eyes closed in a death-like unconsciousness.
CHAPTER VI.
“Who redeemeth thy life from destruction.”
“Strike—for your altars and your fires;
Strike—for the green graves of your sires;
God, and your native land!”