d know, to be beseeching him to tell her what treatment he
deserved of her, or what would make their case whole. They were simple
people, these two, but she had leaped, without knowing it herself, to a
new plane of life. She was still with Raven in the hut, trying to speak
his language, follow out his thought for her. She gave a little quick
rush across the room and, to Tenney's overwhelming surprise, her hands
were on his shoulders, her face so close to his that her sweet breath
fanned him. He had never seen her so. She had to be pursued, coaxed,
tired out with persuasion before she would even accept the warmth he too
often had for her.

"Isr'el," she said, "Isr'el Tenney! if you ever ag'in, so long as you
live, think wrong o' that baby there, you'll be the wickedest man on
God's earth."

His arms closed about her and she stood passive. Yet she wanted to free
herself. Did she love him? The question Raven had seemed to illuminate
kept beating on in her tired head. Did she love him? And as Tenney's
arms clung closer and his lips were on hers, she threw back her head and
cried violently:

"No, I don't."

"Don't what?" he asked, releasing her slightly, and she drew away from
him and, still obeying Raven, made one disordered effort at assurance.

"If you think"--here she stopped. She could not go on. It had always
seemed to her a wrong to the baby to put the vile suspicion into words.
"If you think," she tried again, "what you said this mornin'--O Isr'el,
I've been as true to you as you are to your God."

He was religious, she often told herself, chiefly in her puzzled musings
after a "spell" was over, and this was the strongest vow she could
imagine. But it disconcerted him.

"There! there!" he said. "Don't say such things."

Evidently the name of God was for Sundays. But he was uneasily
reassured. He was, at least, in a way of sense, delighted. He put his
face to hers and thickly bade her kiss him. He was not for the moment
horrible to her unconsenting will. Rather she found herself rejoicing.
When she could escape from him (and she felt no fear, her wild belief in
herself was so great) she thought she could dance and sing. For now she
knew she did not love him, and it made her feel so free. Always there
had been some uneasy bond, first with the man who cajoled her to her
heart-break and the miserable certainty that, whatever magic was in a
good name, it was hers no more, and then with Tenney, whom she had
follo