again.

"I want to take back the promise that I gave you last night, Meleese. I
want to give you a chance to warn any whom you may wish to warn. I shall
not return into the South. From this hour begins the hunt for the
cowardly devils who have tried to murder me. Before dawn every man on
the Wekusko will be in the search, and if we find them there shall be no
mercy. Will you help me, or--"

She struck his hands from her face, springing back before he had
finished. He saw a sudden change of expression; her lips grew tense and
firm; from the death whiteness of her face there faded slowly away the
look of soft pleading, the quivering lines of fear. There was a
strangeness in her voice when she spoke--something of the hard
determination which Howland had put in his own, and yet the tone of it
lacked his gentleness and love.

"Will you please tell me the time?" The question was almost startling.
Howland held the dial of his watch to the light of the stars.

"It is a quarter past midnight."

The faintest shadow of a smile passed over the girl's lips.

"Are you certain that your watch is not fast?" she asked.

In speechless bewilderment Howland stared at her.

"Because it will mean a great deal to you and to me if it is not a
quarter past midnight," continued Meleese, a growing glow in her eyes.
Suddenly she approached him and put both of her warm hands to his face,
holding down his arms with her own. "Listen," she whispered. "Is there
nothing--nothing that will make you change your purpose, that will take
you back into the South--to-night?"

The nearness of the sweet face, the gentle touch of the girl's hands,
the soft breath of her lips, sent a maddening impulse through Howland
to surrender everything to her. For an instant he wavered.

"There might be one--just _one_ thing that would take me away to-night,"
he replied, his voice trembling with the great love that thrilled him.
"For you, Meleese, I would give up everything--ambition, fortune, the
building of this road. If I go to-night will you go with me? Will you
promise to be my wife when we reach Le Pas?"

A look of ineffable tenderness came into the beautiful eyes so near to
his own.

"That is impossible. You will not love me when you know what I am--what
I have done--"

He stopped her.

"Have you done wrong--a great wrong?"

For a moment her eyes faltered; then, hesitatingly, there fell from her
lips, "I--don't--know. I believe I have. But it's not