Alice to
say that the Haneys had arrived and that he had left them under their
own roof in good repair.

"How is the Captain's health?" she asked, with the morbid interest of
the invalid gossip.

"He feels the altitude a little, but that is probably only temporary.
They both seem very glad to get home."

"He's made a mistake. He can't live here--I am perfectly sure of it. How
is she?"

"Very well--and beautifully dressed, which is the main thing," he added,
with a slight return of his humor. "They asked after you very
particularly."

Unable to sleep, he went out to walk the night, blind envy in his brain
and a hot hunger in his heart, moved as he had never been moved before
at thought of Haney's nearness to that glowing girl. Their union was
monstrous, incredible.

He no longer attempted to deceive himself. He loved this young wife
whose expanding personality had enthralled him from their first meeting.
It was not alone that she was possessed of bodily charm--she called to
him through the mysterious ways which lead the one man to the
predestined woman. The affection he had borne towards Alice Heath was
but the violet ray of friendship compared to the lambent, leaping, red
flame of his passion for Bertha Haney. She represented to him the
mysterious potency and romance of the West--typifying its amazing
resiliency, its limitless capability of adaptation. In a way that seemed
roundabout and strange, but which was, after all, very simple and very
direct, she had lifted her family as well as herself out of poverty back
into the comfort which was their right. Odd, masculine, unexpected of
phrase, she had never been awkward or cheap. Congdon was right, she was
capable of high things. She made mistakes, of course, but they were not
those which a shallow personality would make--they sprang rather from
the overflow of a vigorous and abounding imagination.

"All she needs is contact with people of the right sort. She is capable
of the highest culture," he concluded.

That she was more vital to him than any other woman in the world he now
knew, but he acknowledged nothing base in this confession. He was not
seeking ways to possess her of his love--on the contrary, he was
resolved to conduct himself so nobly that she would again trust and
respect him. "My love is honorable," he said. "I will go forward as in
the beginning--why should I not?--enjoying her companionship as any
honest man may do."

The question of his rel