without some misgivings, and his fears were
tritely expressed to Bill Brudenell, who joined him a few minutes later.

"There's only one thing to unfix the things I've stuck together," he
said. "It's the--woman."

And Bill's agreement added to his fears of the moment.

"Sure. But you haven't figgered on--Pap."

"Pap?"

Bill nodded.

"There's fourteen days. Pap's crazy mad about Maude and the boy. The
boy won't figger to quit things for fourteen days. If I'm wise he'll
boost all he needs into them. Well--there's Pap."

Bill was looking on with both eyes wide open, as was his way. He had
put into a few words all he saw. And Kars beheld in perfect nakedness
the dangers to his plans.

"We must get busy," was all he said, but there was a look of doubt in
his usually confident eyes.

Maude lived in an elaborate house farther down the main street, and
Alec Mowbray was on his way thither. He had kept from Kars the fact
that his midday meal was to be taken with the woman who had now frankly
abandoned herself to an absorbing passion for the handsome youth from
the wilderness "inside."

It was no unusual episode in the career of a woman of her class. On
the contrary, it was perhaps the commonest exhibition of her peculiar
disposition. Hundreds of such women, thousands, have flung aside
everything they have schemed and striven for, and finally achieved as
the price of all a woman holds sacred, for the sake of a sudden,
unbridled passion she is powerless to control. Perhaps "Chesapeake"
Maude understood her risks in a city of lawlessness, and in flinging
aside the protection of such a man as Pap Shaunbaum. Perhaps she did
not. But those who looked on, and they were a whole people of a city,
waited breathless and pulsating for the ensuing acts of what they
regarded as a human _comedy_.

Alec, his slim, powerful young body clad in the orthodox garb of this
northern city, swung along down the slush-laden street, his thoughts
busy preparing his argument for the persuading of the woman who had
become the sun and centre of his life. He knew his difficulties, he
knew his own regrets. But the advantages both to her, and to him,
which Kars had cleverly pointed out, outweighed both. His mind was set
on persuading her. Nor did he question for a moment that for her, as
for him, the bond between them was an enduring love that would always
be theirs, and would adapt itself to their mutual advantage. The
northern