hs. "Are you ready to give up
everything that has been dear to you in the days that are gone, for this
crazy ideal? For if you are not," he finished with a solemnity that
brought a queer lump to her throat, "I had much rather that you stopped
before you began."

She rose and faced him, and her eyes looked steadily into his. They
gleamed dull grey, like the hulls of battleships on the fighting line,
and her chin was grimly firm. The stock from which she sprang had been a
pioneering stock, and none who bore the name of Wynrod, in days when
life was simple but hard, had turned back when once their hands were on
the plough. Their sturdy courage was in her blood, and the echo of that
Hugh Wynrod who had defied his King and left all that life had held dear
for him, to seek a new life in a new world, for the sake of an ideal,
sounded in her vibrant voice.

"I understand, Mr. Good. I am ready--for anything."

"It means--fight--always," he said softly.

"I have played always. I _want_--fight."

"Then shake," he cried. "We'll go through--to the end!"

"To the end," she echoed, as she seized his outstretched hand. Then the
tension snapped suddenly.

"How absurd," she laughed. "We're behaving like pirates in a melodrama.
Let's go in the other room and be rational people."

But Good did not even attempt to smile.

CHAPTER VI

DEAD IDOLS

Arnold Imrie was of clear Scotch descent. And among his forebears had
been those grim Covenanters to whom compromise was anathema. He had a
strong body and a strong intellect, but stronger than both combined was
the resistless overlord he called his conscience. Sydney Smith's
aspersions upon the impenetrability of the Scotch skull are well known,
though their justice may be questioned. But it is indisputable that
nothing short of the heroic measures he recommended would suffice to
separate Imrie from a resolve, once firmly made. Being human, he saw
many things dimly, and some quite falsely. But as he saw he lived, and
there was no power in the earth or out of it to make him evade or
equivocate. Sometimes this sturdy candour made him noble: sometimes it
made him tiresome: and once in a way it merely made him ridiculous. But
though for long periods it might remain dormant, it was none the less
the prime impetus in his life.

Judith's derision, her more or less obvious contempt, had wounded him
more than he would have believed possible; and her touch, though light,
had found spo