"
"It was part of my madness. I was a coward and I thought then there were
reasons why I should feel no pity for Dyck Calhoun. His father injured
mine--oh, badly! But I was a coward, and I've paid the price."
A kinder feeling now took hold of Sheila. After all, what this woman had
done gave happiness into her--Sheila's-hands. It relieved Dyck Calhoun
of shame and disgrace. A jail-bird he was still, but an innocent jail-
bird. He had not killed Erris Boyne. Besides, it wiped out forever the
barrier between them. All her blind devotion to the man was now
justified. His name and fame were clear. Her repugnance of the woman
was as nothing beside her splendid feeling of relief. It was as though
the gates of hell had been closed and the curtains of heaven drawn for
the eyes to see. Six years of horrible shame wiped out, and a new world
was before her eyes.
This woman who had killed Erris Boyne must now suffer. She must bear the
ignominy which had been heaped upon Dyck Calhoun's head. Yet all at once
there came to her mind a softening feeling. Erris Boyne had been rightly
killed by a woman he had wronged, for he was a traitor as well as an
adulterer--one who could use no woman well, who broke faith with all
civilized tradition, and reverted to the savage.
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