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“I don’t know why I am telling all this to you,” he went on after a pause. “I reckon it’s because of the weakness of the thirst that is coming over me. Some time I’ll go down to those hell-holes at the mills and never come back–the stuff they sell to me is destructive as fire–it is poison! You’re a man of substance, I can see that–you’re no hobo like most of the fellows out here–that’s why I’m talking to you. You remind me of some one I know. There’s something familiar in your eyes.”

The man with the beard struck the ashes from his pipe and began scraping it. “There is always a woman in these cases,” he critically remarked.

The miner took this simple statement as a challenging question. His excitement visibly increased, but he did not at once reply. He talked on aimlessly, incoherently, struggling like a small animal in a torrent. He rose at last, and as he stood in the doorway, breathing deeply, his face livid in the sunset light, the muscles of his jaw trembled.

The stranger observed his host’s agitation, but put away his pipe with slow and steady hand. He said nothing, and yet an observer would have declared he held the other and weaker man in the grasp of an inexorable hypnotic silence. Finally he fixed a calm, cold glance upon his host, as if summoning him to answer.

“Yes,” the miner confessed, “there is always a woman in the case–another and more fortunate man. The woman is false, the man is treacherous. You trust and they betray. Such beings ruin and madden–they make outlaws such as I am–“

“Love is above will,” asserted the millwright, with decision.

The other man fiercely turned. “I know what you mean–you mean the woman is not to be condemned–that love goes where it is drawn. That is true, but deceit is not involuntary–it is deliberate–“

“Sometimes we deceive ourselves.”

“In her case it was deceit,” retorted the miner, who was now so deeply engaged with his own story that each general observation on the part of his guest was taken to be specific and personal.

The room was growing dusky, and the stranger’s glance appeared keener, more insistent, as his body melted into the shadow. His shaggy head and black beard all but disappeared; only the faint outlines of his forehead remained, and yet, as his physical self faded into the gloom, his personality, his psychic self, loomed larger. His will enveloped the hermit, drawing upon him with irresistible power. It was as if he were wringing him dry of a confession as the priest closes in upon the culprit.

“I had my happy days–my days of care-free youth,” the unquiet man was saying. “But my time of innocence was short. Evil companions came early and reckless deeds followed…. I knew I was losing something, I knew I was being drawn downward, but I could not escape. Day and night I called for help, and then–she came–“

“Who came?”

“The one who made me forget all the others, the one who made me ashamed.”

“And then?”

“And then for a time I was happy in the hope that I might win her and so redeem my life.”

“And she?”

“She pitied me–at first–and loved me–at least I thought so.”

As his excitement increased his words came slower, burdened with passion. He spoke like a prisoner addressing a judge, his voice but a husky whisper.

“I told her I was unworthy of her–that was when I believed her to be an angel. I promised to begin a new life for her sake. Then she promised me–helped me–and all the while she was false to me–false as a hell-cat!”

“How?” queried the almost invisible man, and his voice was charged with stern demand.

“All the time she was promised to another man–and that man my enemy.”

Here his frenzy flared forth in a torrent of words.

“Then–then I went mad. My brain was scarred and numb. I lost all sense of pity–all fear of law–all respect for woman. I only knew my wrongs–my despair–my hate. I watched, I waited, I found them together–“

“And then? What did you do then?” demanded the stranger, rising from his seat with sudden energy, his voice deep, insistent, masterful. “Tell me what you did?”

The miner’s wild voice died to a hesitant whisper. “I–I fled.”

“But before that–before you fled?”

“What is it to you?” asked the hermit, gazing with scared eyes at the man who towered above him like the demon of retribution. “Who are you?”

“I am the avenger!” answered the other. “The man you hated was my brother. The woman you killed was his wife.”

The fugitive fell upon his knees with a cry like that of one being strangled.

Out of the darkness a red flame darted, and the crouching man fell to the floor, a crumpled, bloody heap.

For a long time the executioner stood above the body, waiting, listening from the shadow to the faint receding breath-strokes of his victim. When all was still he restored his weapon to its sheath and stepped over the threshold into the keen and pleasant night.

As he closed the door behind him the stranger raised his eyes to Solidor, whose sovereign, cloud-like crest swayed among the stars.

“Now I shall rest,” he said, with solemn satisfaction.