"What's happened?" she asked of John Mark. "What can have happened down there?"
"A very simple story," said Mark. "Lefty, as I feared, has been more chivalrous than wise. He has stepped out into the road and ordered Ronicky to stop, and Ronicky has stopped. Now he is sitting in his saddle, looking down to Lefty, and they are holding a parley—very like two knights of the old days, exchanging compliments before they try to cut each other's throats."
But, even as he spoke, there was the sound of a gun exploding, and then a silence.
"One shot—one revolver shot," said John Mark in his deadly calm voice. "It is as I said. They drew at a signal, and one of them proved far the faster. It was a dead shot, for only one was needed to end the battle. One of them is standing, the other lies dead under the shadow of that grove, my dear. Which is it?"
"Which is it?" asked the girl in a whisper. Then she threw up her hands with a joyous cry: "Ronicky Doone! Ronicky, Ronicky Doone!"
A horseman was breaking into view through the grove, and now he rode out into full view below them—unmistakably Ronicky Doone! Even at that distance he heard the cry, and, throwing up his hand with a shout that tingled faintly up to them, he spurred straight up the slope toward them. Ruth Tolliver started forward, but a hand closed over her wrist with a biting grip and brought her to a sudden halt. She turned to find John Mark, an automatic hanging loosely in his other hand.
His calm had gone, and in his dead-white face the eyes were rolling and gleaming, and his set lips trembled. "You were right," he said, "I cannot face him. Not that I fear death, but there would be a thousand damnations in it if I died knowing that he would have you after my eyes were closed. I told you he could not take you—not living, my dear. Dead he may have us both."
"John!" said the girl, staring and bewildered. "In the name of pity,
John, in the name of all the goodness you have showed me, don't do it."
He laughed wildly. "I am about to lose the one thing on earth I have ever cared for, and still I can smile. I am about to die by my own hand, and still I can smile. For the last time, will you stand up like your old brave self?"
"Mercy!" she cried. "In Heaven's name—"