CHAPTER XXV
THE BECOMING END
"Why did you interfere?" when at last he got his breath again, asked Newbold of Maitland who still held him firmly although restraint was now unnecessary, the heat and fire of his passion being somewhat gone out of him. "I meant to kill him."
"He'd oughter die sure nuff," drawled old Kirkby, rising from where he had been kneeling by Armstrong's side, "but I don't know's how you're bound to be his executioner. He's all right now, Miss Enid," said the old man. "Here"—he took a pillow from the bunk and slipped it under his head and then extending his hands he lifted the excited almost distraught woman to her feet—"tain't fittin' for you to tend on him."
"Oh," exclaimed Enid, her limbs trembling, the blood flowing away from her heart, her face deathly white, fighting against the faintness that came with the reaction, while old Kirkby supported and encouraged her. "I thank God you came. I don't know what would have happened if you had not."
"Has this man mistreated you?" asked Robert Maitland, suddenly tightening his grip upon his hard breathing but unresisting passive prisoner.
"No, no," answered his niece. "He has been everything that a man should be."
"And Armstrong?" continued her uncle.
"No, not even he."
"I came in time, thank God!" ejaculated Newbold.