this before. Her reserve was gone, the
disdain with it; there was naked sincerity in her glowing eyes, in her
words, in her manner. He watched her, fascinated, as she continued:

"I think you can see now that if I had wanted to be dishonest you could
not have stopped me. My honesty proven, what must have been my motive
in staying here to take your insults, to submit to your boorishness? I
will tell you; you may believe me or not, as you please. I was
grateful to your father. I gave him my promise. He wanted me to make
a man of you.

"When you first came here, and I saw what a burden I had assumed, I was
afraid. But I saw that you did not intend to take advantage of me;
that you weren't like a good many men--brutes who prey on unprotected
women; that only your temper was wanton. And instead of fearing you I
began to pity you. I saw promise in you; you had manly impulses, but
you hadn't had your chance. I had faith in you. To a certain extent
you have justified that faith. You have shown flashes of goodness of
heart; you have exhibited generous, manly sympathies--to everybody but
me. But I do not care [there was a suspicious moisture in her eyes and
a queer tightening of the lips that gave the lie to this declaration]
how you treat me. I intend to keep my promise to your father, no
matter what you do. But I want to make you understand that I am not
the kind of woman you take me to be--that I am not being made a fool of
by Neal Taggart--or by any man!"

Calumet did not reply; the effect of this passionate defense of herself
on him was deep and poignant, and words would not come to his lips.
Truth had spoken to him--he knew it. At a stroke she had subdued him,
humbled him. It was as though a light had suddenly been turned on him,
showing him the mean, despicable side of him, contrasting it with the
little good which had come into being--good which had been placed
there, fostered, and cultivated into promise. Then the light had been
as suddenly turned off, leaving him with a gnawing, impotent longing to
be what she wanted him to be. Involuntarily, he took his hat off to
her and bowed respectfully. Then he reached a swift hand into an inner
pocket of his vest and withdrew it, holding out a paper to her. She
took it and looked wonderingly at it. It was the diagram of the
clearing in the timber clump showing where the idol was buried.

Her face paled, for she knew that his action in restoring the diag