Again Floyd’s voice rang out.
“Julie, you are my wife. You must come with me!”
A moment’s silence, the trees motionless, the clouds sullen, waiting; then the voice of Nature, so long suppressed, broke out in Julie.
“No! No! I belong to Martin! I will not leave him! I cannot!”
Martin stood a little above her, he put out his hand to draw her up, she smiled at him. God! her joy!
Floyd raised his pistol, fired; Martin’s arm fell to his side. Now burning with a murderous rage, he sprang forward at closer range.
“This time through the heart!”
With a cry of horror, Julie wrested the pistol from his hand. It fell some distance away, went off, reverberating through the valley, arousing the people. The pastor heard it in the little chapel, where he had gone at the approach of the storm. He came holding up his lantern, seeking the cause. A fierce gust of wind blew through the ravine, whirling, in a dervish-like dance of fiendish fury.
Then the demon in Martin went out to meet the tearing forces of nature.
“Fool! Fool! You cannot hold her! She was never yours! never! She is mine by Nature’s unalterable law!”