the girl ashore. Betty sat on a log, bareheaded in the sun. MacRae
had a feeling that she looked at him. And she would be thinking,--God
only knew what.

In MacRae's mind arose the inevitable question,--one that he had choked
back dozens of times: Was it worth while to hurt her so, and himself,
because their fathers had fought, because there had been wrongs and
injustices? MacRae shook himself impatiently. He was backsliding.
Besides that unappeasable craving for her, vivid images of her with
tantalizing mouth, wayward shining hair, eyes that answered the passion
in his own, besides these luring pictures of her which troubled him
sometimes both in waking hours and sleeping, there was a strange,
deep-seated distrust of Betty because she was the daughter of her
father. That was irrational, and Jack MacRae knew it was irrational. But
he could not help it. It colored his thought of her. It had governed his
reactions.

MacRae himself could comprehend all too clearly the tragedy of his
father's life. But he doubted if any one else could. He shrank from
unfolding it even to Betty,--even to make clear to her why his hand must
be against her father. MacRae knew, or thought he knew--he had reasoned
the thing out many times in the last few months--that Betty would not
turn to him against her own flesh and blood without a valid reason. He
could not, even, in the name of love, cut her off from all that she had
been, from all that had made her what she was, and make her happy. And
MacRae knew that if they married and Betty were not happy and contented,
they would both be tigerishly miserable. There was only one possible
avenue, one he could not take. He could not seek peace with Gower, even
for Betty's sake.

MacRae considered moodily, viewing the matter from every possible angle.
He could not see where he could do other than as he was doing: keep
Betty out of his mind as much as possible and go on determinedly making
his fight to be top dog in a world where the weak get little mercy and
even the strong do not always come off unscarred.

Jack MacRae was no philosopher, nor an intellectual superman, but he
knew that love did not make the world go round. It was work. Work and
fighting. Men spent most of their energies in those two channels.

This they could not escape. Love only shot a rosy glow across life. It
did not absolve a man from weariness or scars. By it, indeed, he might
suffer greater stress and deeper scars. To MacRae