"Boy--tell me--did this Stanton
woman love you--did you strike her? Did you--" The general's voice
failed.
Neale faced about with a tragic darkening of his face. "To my shame
--it is true," he said, clearly.
Then Allie Lee swept forward. "Oh, Neale!"
He seemed to rise and leap at once. And she ran straight into his
arms. No man, no trouble, no mystery, no dishonor, no barrier--
nothing could have held her back the instant she saw how the sight
of her, how the sound of her voice, had transformed Neale. For one
tumultuous, glorious, terrible moment she clung to his neck, blind,
her heart bursting. Then she fell back with hands seeking her
breast.
"I heard!" she cried. "I know nothing of Beauty Stanton's letter....
But you didn't shoot her. It was Larry. I saw him do it."
"Allie!" he whispered.
At last he had realized her actual presence, the safety of her body
and soul; and all that had made him strange and old and grim and sad
vanished in a beautiful transfiguration.
"You know Larry did it!" implored Allie. "Tell them so."
"Yes, I know," he replied. "But I did worse. I--"
She saw him shaken by an agony of remorse; and that agony was
communicated to her.
"Neale! she loved you?"
He bowed his head.
"Oh!" Her cry was almost mute, full of an unutterable realization of
tragic fatality for her.
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