d I have no doubt of yet winning
the consent of the lady herself if she will but give me a fair chance."

"Mr. Walcott," said Kate, her eyes ablaze with indignation, "would you
make a woman your wife who did not love you--who never could, under any
circumstances, love you?"

Walcott suddenly seized her hands in his, looking down into her eyes
with his steady, dominant gaze.

"If I loved her as I love you," he said, slowly, "I would make her my
wife though she hated me,--and win her love afterwards! I can win it,
and I will!"

"Never!" Kate exclaimed, passionately, but he had kissed her hands and
was gone before she could recover herself.

In that look she had for the first time comprehended something of the
man's real nature, of the powerful brute force concealed beneath the
smooth, smiling exterior. Her heart seemed seized and held in a
vise-like grip, while a cold, benumbing despair settled upon her like an
incubus, which she was unable to throw off for days.

It lacked only two days of the time set for Darrell's return to the
mining camp when he and Kate set out one afternoon accompanied by Duke
for a ride up the familiar canyon road. At first their ponies cantered
briskly, but as the road grew more rough and steep they were finally
content to walk quietly side by side.

For a while neither Darrell nor Kate had much to say. Their hearts were
too oppressed for words. Each realized that this little jaunt into the
mountains was their last together; that it constituted a sort of
farewell to their happy life of the past summer and to each other. Each
was thinking of their first meeting under the pines on that evening
gorgeous with the sunset rays and sweet with the breath of June roses.

At last they turned into a trail which soon grew so steep and narrow
that they dismounted, and, fastening their ponies, proceeded up the
trail on foot. Slowly they wended their way upward, pausing at length on
a broad, projecting ledge a little below the summit, where they seated
themselves on the rocks to rest a while. Kate's eyes wandered afar over
the wonderful scene before them, wrapped in unbroken silence, yet
palpitating in the mellow, golden sunlight with a mysterious life and
beauty all its own.

But Darrell was for once oblivious to the scene; his eyes were fastened
on Kate's face, a look in them of insatiable hunger, as though he were
storing up the memory of every line and lineament against the barren
days to come. H