But for him she might at that very moment have been a broken, ruined girl lying back in that cabin of the Blands'.

The fact gave him a feeling of his importance in this shifting of her destiny.

She was unharmed, still young; she would forget and be happy; she would live to be a good wife and mother.

Somehow the thought swelled his heart.

His act, death-dealing as it had been, was a noble one, and helped him to hold on to his drifting hopes.