les were not yet at an end. She stopped crying and got
up to follow him blindly over more hills and through other brier
tangles; and when they finally emerged in the cleared lands, they were
still on the wrong side of the creek.

"It's only about up to your chin; reckon you can wade it?" asked Thomas
Jefferson, in a sudden access of heart-hardening. But it softened him a
little to see her gather her torn frock and stumble down to the water's
edge without a word, and he added: "Hold on; maybe we can find a log,
somewhere."

There was a foot log just around the next bend above, as he very well
knew, and thither he led the way. The dog made the crossing first, and
stood wagging his tail encouragingly on the bank of safety. Then Thomas
Jefferson passed his trembling victim out on the log.

"You go first," he directed; "so 't I can catch you if you slip."

For the first time she humbled herself to beg a boon.

"Oh, you please go first, so I won't have to look down at the water!"

"No; I'm coming behind--then I can catch you if you get dizzy and go to
fall," he said stubbornly.

"Will you walk right up close, so I can know you are there?"

Thomas Jefferson's smile was cruelly misleading, as were his words. "All
you'll have to do will be to reach your hand back and grab me," he
assured her; and thereupon she began to inch her way out over the
swirling pool.

When he saw that she could by no possibility turn to look back, Thomas
Jefferson deliberately sat down on the bank to watch her. There had
never been anything in his life so tigerishly delightful as this game of
playing on the feelings and fears of the girl whose coming had spoiled
the solitudes.

For the first few feet Ardea went steadily forward, keeping her eyes
fixed on the Great Dane sitting motionless at the farther end of the
bridge of peril. Then, suddenly the dog grew impatient and began to leap
and bark like a foolish puppy. It was too much for Ardea to have her
eye-anchor thus transformed into a dizzying whirlwind of gray monsters.
She reached backward for the reassuring hand: it was not there, and the
next instant the hungry pool rose up to engulf her.

In all his years Thomas Jefferson had never had such a stab as that
which an instantly awakened conscience gave him when she slipped and
fell. Now he was her murderer, beyond any hope of future mercies. For a
moment the horror of it held him vise-like. Then the sight of the Great
Dane plunging to th