"But I will not!" exclaimed Helen, with ringing voice and flashing eye. She turned to her girl friends and besought them to intercede for the outlaw. But Nell only looked sorrowfully on, while Betty met her appealing glance with a fire in her eyes that was no dim reflection of her brother's.
"Then I must make my appeal to you," said Helen, facing the borderman. There could be no mistaking how she regarded him. Respect, honor and love breathed from every line of her beautiful face.
"Why do you want him to go free?" demanded Jonathan. "You told me to kill him."
"Oh, I know. But I was not in my right mind. Listen to me, please. He must have been very different once; perhaps had sisters. For their sake give him another chance. I know he has a better nature. I feared him, hated him, scorned him, as if he were a snake, yet he saved me from that monster Legget!"
"For himself!"
"Well, yes, I can't deny that. But he could have ruined me, wrecked me, yet he did not. At least, he meant marriage by me. He said if I would marry him he would flee over the border and be an honest man."
"Have you no other reason?"
"Yes." Helen's bosom swelled and a glory shone in her splendid eyes.
"The other reason is, my own happiness!"
Plain to all, if not through her words, from the light in her eyes, that she could not love a man who was a party to what she considered injustice.
The borderman's white face became flaming red.