he asked, in sudden vague
anxiety.

"Do with him?"

"Yes--Sunnysides? I wish you'd please sell him."

"Sell him? Sell Sunnysides?" His voice betrayed his astonishment.

"Yes."

"But I haven't ridden him yet."

"You don't mean--" Her voice failed.

"That I'm going to ride him? Just as soon as I get well."

For some seconds she sat dazed. It was so utterly unexpected. The
thought had not once occurred to her that he would try again what had
all but cost him his life. It is at some such point as this that man's
and woman's natures make one of their many departures from the
parallel. To Haig the taming of Sunnysides now meant everything; to
Marion it seemed a useless, a worse than useless risk, a wicked waste.
What had been the worth, then, of all her labor of love, if it was to
be thrown away? He would be killed the next time. And in the horror
with which she foresaw that tragic end of all that she had planned and
builded, her courage and confidence fell away from her, and left her
weak and helpless. She uttered a thin, little cry, and slipped to the
floor on her knees, clasping his emaciated hand that lay on an arm of
the chair.

"No! No!" she cried frantically. "Please, Philip! Please promise me
you won't do that!"

Then she broke down completely, her head drooped, and she sank down in
a heap, with her face between her hands.

Haig was stunned. He had blundered again. Fool, not to have let her go
away from him in silence, in calm! He looked down at that crumpled
figure, at the mass of tawny hair, with the red-gold lights in it, the
enticing soft whiteness of her neck where the hair curved cleanly
upward, the graceful slope of the shoulders that now shook with sobs.
And something stirred in him, something deep, too deep to be reached
and overpowered. It grew until it sang through all his being, a
feeling such as he had never known before. She was fine and beautiful;
she was a thing to be desired; and he had only to reach out, and take
her for his own. Before he was aware of it, he had stretched out his
hand until it almost touched her hair. Then from across the years a
mocking voice rang out shrill and cold and cruel: "Now don't you go
mussing up my apartment, Pipo!"

He drew back his hand with a jerk, and clutched the chair; and sat
bolt upright, while every nerve rang with the alarm.

Minutes passed. The sobs gradually subsided; the figure on the floor
slowly ceased its convulsive movements; and again