"Your wife?" gritted Dick. He fingered his gun as he spoke.
Huskily Jack replied: "Yes."
Bitter thoughts filled the mind of one; the other had schooled himself to make atonement. For the wrong he had done, Jack was ready to offer his life. He had endured the full measure of his sufferings. The hour of his delivery was at hand. Hard as it was to die in the midglory of manhood, it was easier to end it all here and now, than to live unloved by Echo, hated by Dick, despised by himself.
"She sent me to find you. 'Bring him back to me.' That's what she said," Jack cried, in his agony.
"Your wife—she said that?" faltered Dick.
Fiercely in his torture Jack answered: "Yes—my wife—my wife said it. 'Bring him back to me.'"
"Back?" Dick paused. "Back to what?" he asked himself. "She's your wife, isn't she?" he demanded.
"That's what the law says," answered Jack.
With the thought of the evening in the garden when he heard Jack and Echo pronounced man and wife surging over him, Dick murmured: "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder."
"That's what the Book says," answered Jack. "But when hands alone are joined and hearts are asunder, it can't go on record as the work of God."