consciously, and the light flashed in her eyes. She jumped and handed
it quickly to Jim.

"Or a jack o' lantern--here, take it," she cried, still trembling.

Jim threw his hands up with a laugh.

"Can you beat it!"

Backing quickly to the door, Nance called nervously to Mary:

"I'll get your room ready in a minute, ma'am." She paused and glanced at
Jim.

"And thar's a shed out thar you can put your devil wagon in----"

She slipped through the dirty calico curtains, and Mary saw her go with
wondering pity in her heart.

CHAPTER XV. A LITTLE BLACK BAG

Mary watched Nance, with a quick glance at Jim. Again he had forgotten
that he had a wife. She had studied this strange absorption with
increasing uneasiness. During the long, beautiful drive of the afternoon
beside laughing waters, through scenes of unparalleled splendor, through
valleys of entrancing peace, the still, sapphire skies bending above
with clear, Southern Christmas benediction, he had not once pressed her
hand, he had not once bent to kiss her.

Each time the thought had come, she fought back the tears. She had
made excuses for him. He was absorbed in the memories of his miserable
childhood in New York, perhaps. The approaching meeting with his
relatives had awakened the old hunger for a mother's love that had
been denied him. The scenes through which they were passing had perhaps
stirred the currents of his subconscious being.

And yet why should such memories estrange his spirit from hers? The
effect should be the opposite. In the remembrance of his loneliness and
suffering, he should instinctively turn to her. The love with which she
had unfolded his life should redeem the past.

He was standing now with his heavy chin silhouetted against the
flickering light of the candle on the table. His hand closed suddenly
on the handle of the bag with the swift clutch of an eagle's claw. She
started at the ugly picture it made in the dim rays of the candle.

What were the thoughts seething behind the mask of his face? She watched
him, spellbound by his complete surrender to the mood that had dominated
him from the moment he had touched the deep forests of the Black
Mountain range. A grim elation ruled even his silences. The man standing
there rigid, his face a smiling, twitching mask, was a stranger. This
man she had never known, or loved. And yet they were bound for life in
the tenderest and strongest ties that can hold the human soul and body.