Dolores Demands a Decision

Now Milo, his duty to his Sultana performed, thought of Pascherette. The little octoroon lay where she had fallen, a pitiful little huddled heap; never once had her pain-dulled eyes left the giant, or the place where he might appear. And now she saw him coming toward her, not as a ministering angel, but like a figure of wrath, swinging his great broad-ax in one hand as easily as another man might swing a cutlas. She shivered as he stood over her, accusing.

"Milo!" she panted, gazing up at his magnificent height in plaintive supplication.

"Serpent!" he replied, and the utter contempt in his voice went to her heart like a sword-thrust. "Hast a God to pray to before I send thy false soul adrift?"

"I have but one God, Milo; to Him I should not pray."

She fixed her burning gaze upon him, and in her pained eyes blazed all the tremendous love that actuated her small being.

"A God thou canst not pray to, traitor? Art afraid, then?"

"Not afraid, Milo," she whispered, and her eyelids drooped. "I cannot pray to one who looks down upon me as thou dost."

"I?" The giant's expression changed to frowning displeasure rather than anger. "I?" he repeated.

"Thee, my heart. Thou'rt my god, my all. For thee I have done this thing. For thee, who even now canst not see where lies the falsity. Milo"--her weak voice sank to a low murmur--"I beg thy forgiveness. My love for thee caused me to sin. My life is to pay the supreme price. Let me die at least in thy forgiveness."