y despises him. Clarke is evidently
losing his hold on the rock-ballasted keel of his creed, and in his
shipwreck he may carry that girl down with him; such cases are all too
common. If he is married, he is all the more dangerous. But it is not
my duty to interfere." He ended, resolute to put the whole problem
from him: "The girl has legal guardians--on them rests the blame if
she is corrupted. To reform this world has never been my call."

But he could not rid himself of a growing sense of responsibility. His
mind returned again and again to the complication into which he had
suddenly been thrust. "Perhaps this desire on the part of the girl to
go away to study is only an instinctive desire to escape. It would be
like that preacher to have a worn, little, commonplace wife. What can
Lambert be thinking of to let such a man come into his home and direct
the daily life of both his wife and daughter? He is neglecting his
plain duty."

He fell asleep, fancying himself on the way up the trail to the mine,
and when he woke to find the good, rectifying rays of the morning sun
filling his room the theories of the night were absurd. He desired to
see the girl again, not to warn her of her peril, but because she was
piquant and lovely, as befitted her romantic surroundings.

VI

IN THE MARSHALL BASIN

It must have been about eleven o'clock next morning when Serviss rode
up and dismounted at the Lambert gate, and in the flaming light of
mid-day the sense of mystification, the feeling that the girl was in
the coils of some invisible menace, had entirely vanished. The
preacher had sunk to the role of a conceited clerical ass who regarded
science as an enemy to his especial theories and the visible universe
as an outlying province of Calvinism; while Viola, who came to the
door, was again most humanly charming, delighting his eyes like the
morning.

She smiled blithely and spoke collectedly, in response to his
greeting; but when he asked her to be his guide to the wonders of the
region her face clouded in dismay.

"Oh, I'm sorry; I wish I could; but I must carry a message up to my
father at the mine."

"Very well, why not take me? I infer you go on horseback?"

She hesitated. "Yes, but it's a long, hard ride--and you said you were
tired of the saddle."

"I was yesterday; but I feel quite rested now. By all means let me
accompany you. I should particularly enjoy mounting high to-day. I
should also like to meet yo