is clothes. As the boy went in the next room to do this, she
followed Jack to the little gate and stood pale and suffering, but
not able to speak.

"Good-bye," he said, giving her his hand--"you know, Margaret, my
life--why I am here, to be near you,--how I love you, have loved
you."

"And how I love you, Jack," she said simply.

The words went through him with a fierce sweetness that shook him.

"My God--don't say that--it hurts me so, after--what you've done."

"Jack," she whispered sadly--"some day you'll know--some day you'll
understand that there are things in life greater even than the
selfishness of your own heart's happiness."

"They can't be," said Jack bitterly--"that's what all life's
for--heart happiness--love. Why, hunger and love, them's the fust
things; them's the man an' the woman; them's the law unto theyselves,
the animal, the instinct, the beast that's in us; the things that
makes God excuse all else we do to get them--we have to have 'em. He
made us so; we have to have 'em--it's His own doin'."

"But," she said sweetly--"suppose it meant another to be despised,
reviled, made infamous."

"They'd have to be," he said sternly, for he was thinking of Richard
Travis--"they'd have to be, for he made his own life."

"Oh, you do not understand," she cried. "And you cannot now--but
wait--wait, and it will be plain. Then you'll know all and--that I
love you, Jack."

He turned bitterly and walked away.

CHAPTER XXII

THE BROKEN THREAD

For the first time in years, the next Sunday the little church on the
mountain side was closed, and all Cottontown wondered. Never before
had the old man missed a Sabbath afternoon since the church had been
built. This was to have been Baptist day, and that part of his
congregation was sorely disappointed.

For an hour Bud Billings had stood by the little gate looking down
the big stretch of sandy road, expecting to see the familiar
shuffling, blind old roan coming:

"Sum'pins happened to Ben Butler," said Bud at last--and at thought
of such a calamity, he sat down and shed tears.

His simple heart yearned for pity, and feeling something purring
against him he picked up the cat and coddled it.

"You seem to be cultivatin' that cat again, Bud Billings," came a
sharp voice from the cabin window.

Bud dropped the animal quickly and struck out across the mountain for
the Bishop's cabin.

But he was not prepared for the shock that came to his simple h