Like a dead weight, Ellen began to slide until she slipped down full length beside the log.
And then she lay in the cool, damp shadow, inert and lifeless so far as outward physical movement was concerned.

She saw nothing and felt nothing of the night, the wind, the cold, the falling dew.

For the moment or hour she was crushed by despair, and seemed to see herself sinking down and down into a black, bottomless pit, into an abyss where murky tides of blood and furious gusts of passion contended between her body and her soul.

Into the stormy blast of hell! In her despair she longed, she ached for death.

Born of infidelity, cursed by a taint of evil blood, further cursed by higher instinct for good and happy life, dragged from one lonely and wild and sordid spot to another, never knowing love or peace or joy or home, left to the companionship of violent and vile men, driven by a strange fate to love with unquenchable and insupportable love a' half-breed, a savage, an Isbel, the hereditary enemy of her people, and at last the ruthless murderer of her father--what in the name of God had she left to live for?
Revenge! An eye for an eye! A life for a life! But she could not kill Jean Isbel.