“Don't touch me!” she breathed. She thought she saw him bathed in the blood of the man he had slain. Her lips formed a sentence, “'Thou shalt not kill.'”
“I was tried at Spanish Bar,” he continued. “Miners' law is better than you hear in the East. It's quick, it has to be, but in the main it's serious and right. I was tried with witnesses and a jury and they let me off; they justified me. That ought to go for something.”
“Don't come near me,” she cried, choking, filled with dread and utter loathing. “How can you stand there and—stand there, a murderer, with a life on your heart!”
His face quivered with concern; in spite of her words he drew near her again, repeating the fact that he had been judged, released. Olive Stanes' hysteria vanished before the cold stability which came to her assistance, the sense of being rooted in her creed.
“'Thou shalt not kill,'” she echoed.
The emotion faded from his features, his countenance once more became masklike, the jaw was hard and sharp, his eyes narrowed. “It's all over then?” he asked. She nodded, her lips pinched into a white line.
“What else could be hoped? Blood guiltiness. O Jason, pray to save your soul.”
He moved over to where his high silk hat reposed, secured it, and turned. “This will be final.” His voice was hard. Olive stood slightly swaying, with closed eyes. Then she remembered the buckskin bag of not yellow but scarlet gold. She stumbled forward to it and thrust the weight into his hand. Jason Burrage's fingers closed on the gift, while his gaze rested on her from under contracted brows. He was, it seemed, about to speak, but instead preserved an intense silence; he looked once more about the room, still and old in its lamplight. Why didn't he go? Then she saw that she was alone:
Like the eternal rock outside the door.
From above came the clear, joyous voice of Rhoda singing. Olive crumpled into a chair. Soon Jem would be back.... She turned and slipped down upon the floor in an agony of prayer.