n the cabin she lay counting the minutes as they rushed--thinking
and counting. She must not let herself be prisoned by a mere body that
exulted blindly, basely, in its vigor. She could make everything right.
She could conform to the law of a life for a life.

"The hardest thing," she murmured. "I must do the hardest thing." That
would be her expiation, though not a sufficing one; she recognized that.
She longed for it too avidly, for the relief from thought, from
torturing visions. Yet it was formally perfect as a punishment,
according to the world's standards. She would be her own executioner,
and it would satisfy the world if the world knew. And despite her
longing for release, it was still, she thought, the hardest thing,
although it saved--saved her from that old man and that young man slain:
that young beloved one, lying dead with blood upon his hands. Poor
sacrificed, poor betrayed, poor ruined one! Again, the hollow sickness,
as if her heart were bleeding away inside her. To expiate--to do the
hardest thing. She came back to that always. It was the hardest thing,
although it saved.

When her brother rode up in the afternoon, she instantly saw her plan
completed. There came an hour in which she walked and talked and laughed
in a waking dream, without sensation, except as she could imagine it
felt by a creature she seemed to watch from afar, a creature who had
looked strangely like herself. She saw this woman greet the others and
sit at table with them to laugh and talk with acceptable ease. Their
voices were soundless as voices in a dream, their shapes and flittings
as illogical. So benumbed was her spirit that she suffered little even
at the moment of hurried parting from Virginia. Her role was played with
flawless detachment. She studied herself coolly and guarded against
wrong speeches.

"I shall go home with Clarence; I haven't seen that magnificent ranch
yet," she remarked carelessly, and Virginia and her brother had
applauded this.

"I'll show you a ranch that is a ranch," Bartell had answered.

Ben led Cooney around, saddled. She kissed Virginia lightly and was on
the little horse. She turned to wave gayly as she fell in ahead of
Bartell on the trail to the lake.

The moon had sailed up over the eastern hills with the going down of the
sun, and the shadows were sharply cut in its light. They reined in at
the lake, lingering there a moment in its charm. Under the slanting moon
rays it shone like anot