om
heart and home--with disinheritance; but she pursued her course; and the
only person who stood with her and Jim at the altar was John Appleton, who
would not be denied, and who had such a half-hour with Jim before the
ceremony as neither of them forgot in the years that the locust ate
thereafter. And, standing at the altar, Jim's eyes were still wet, with
new resolves in his heart and a being at his side meant for the best man
in the world. As he knelt beside her, awaiting the benediction, a sudden
sense of the enormity of this act came upon him, and for her sake he would
have drawn back then, had it not been too late. He realized that it was a
crime to put this young, beautiful life in peril; that his own life was a
poor, contemptible thing, and that he had been possessed of the egotism of
the selfish and the young.

But the thing was done, and a new life was begun. Before they were
launched upon it, however, before society had fully grasped the sensation,
or they had left upon their journey to northern Canada, where Sally
intended they should work out their problem and make their home, far and
free from all old associations, a curious thing happened. Jim's father
sent an urgent message to Sally to come to him. When she came, he told her
she was mad, and asked her why she had thrown her life away.

"Why have you done it?" he said. "You--you knew all about him; you might
have married the best man in the country. You could rule a kingdom; you
have beauty and power, and make people do what you want; and you've got a
sot."

"He is your son," she answered, quietly.

She looked so beautiful and so fine as she stood there, fearless and
challenging before him, that he was moved. But he would not show it.

"He was my son--when he was a man," he retorted grimly.

"He is the son of the woman you once loved," she answered.

The old man turned his head away.

"What would she have said to what you did to Jim?"

He drew himself around sharply. Her dagger had gone home, but he would not
let her know it.

"Leave her out of the question--she was a saint," he said, roughly.

"She cannot be left out; nor can you. He got his temperament naturally; he
inherited his weakness. From your grandfather, from her father. Do you
think you are in no way responsible?"

He was silent for a moment, but then said, stubbornly: "Why--why have you
done it? What's between him and me can't be helped; we are father and son;
but you--you had n