ght her red auburn hair, and the
love-lights played with the sunshine in her eyes. Griggs knew that life
had no more dulness for him while she lived, and as for her, he believed
what she said.

Without letting him know what she was doing, she wrote to her father. It
was not an easy letter to write, and she thought that she knew the
savage old Scotchman's temper. She told him everything. At such a
distance, it was easy to throw herself upon his mercy, and it was safer
to write him all while he was far away, so that there might be nothing
left to rouse his anger if he returned. She had no lack of words with
which to describe Reanda's treatment of her; but she was also willing to
take all the blame of the mistake she had made in marrying him. She had
ruined her life before it had begun, she said. She had taken the law
into her own hands, to mend it as best she could. Her father knew that
Paul Griggs was not like other men--that he was able to protect her
against all comers, and that he could make the world fear him if he
could not make it respect her. Her father must do as he thought right.
He would be justified, from the world's point of view, in casting her
off and never remembering her existence again, but she begged him to
forgive her, and to think kindly of her. Meanwhile, she and Griggs were
wretchedly poor, and she begged her father to continue her allowance.

If Paul Griggs had seen this letter, he would have been startled out of
some of his belief in Gloria's perfection. There was a total absence of
any moral sense of right or wrong in what she wrote, which would have
made a more cynical man than Griggs was look grave. The request for the
continuation of the allowance would have shocked him and perhaps
disgusted him. The whole tone was too calm and business-like. It was too
much as though she were fulfilling a duty and seeking to gain an object
rather than appealing to Dalrymple to forgive her for yielding to the
overwhelming mastery of a great passion. It was cold, it was
calculating, and it was, in a measure, unwomanly.

When she had sent the letter, she told Griggs what she had done, but her
account of its contents satisfied him with one of those brilliant false
impressions which she knew so well how to convey. She told him rather
what she should have said than what she had really written, and, as
usual, he found that she had done right.

It was not that she would not have written a better letter if she had