the
riotous force under her heart became an engulfing weakness. He drew
her up to him until he felt all the resistance go out of her body,
until every nerve relaxed and yielded. When she drew her face back
from his, it was white with fear.

"Let us go down, oh, my God! let us go down!" she muttered. And the
drunken stars up yonder seemed reeling to some appointed doom as she
clung to the rounds of the ladder. All that she was to know of love
she had left upon his lips.

"The devil is loose again," whispered Olaf Oleson, as he saw Eric
dancing a moment later, his eyes blazing.

But Eric was thinking with an almost savage exultation of the time
when he should pay for this. Ah, there would be no quailing then! If
ever a soul went fearlessly, proudly down to the gates infernal, his
should go. For a moment he fancied he was there already, treading
down the tempest of flame, hugging the fiery hurricane to his
breast. He wondered whether in ages gone, all the countless years of
sinning in which men had sold and lost and flung their souls away,
any man had ever so cheated Satan, had ever bartered his soul for so
great a price.

It seemed but a little while till dawn.

The carriage was brought to the door and Wyllis Elliot and his
sister said good-by. She could not meet Eric's eyes as she gave him
her hand, but as he stood by the horse's head, just as the carriage
moved off, she gave him one swift glance that said, "I will not
forget." In a moment the carriage was gone.

Eric changed his coat and plunged his head into the watertank and
went to the barn to hook up his team. As he led his horses to the
door, a shadow fell across his path, and he saw Skinner rising in
his stirrups. His rugged face was pale and worn with looking after
his wayward flock, with dragging men into the way of salvation.

"Good-morning, Eric. There was a dance here last night?" he asked,
sternly.

"A dance? Oh, yes, a dance," replied Eric, cheerfully.

"Certainly you did not dance, Eric?"

"Yes, I danced. I danced all the time."

The minister's shoulders drooped, and an expression of profound
discouragement settled over his haggard face. There was almost
anguish in the yearning he felt for this soul.

"Eric, I didn't look for this from you. I thought God had set his
mark on you if he ever had on any man. And it is for things like
this that you set your soul back a thousand years from God. O
foolish and perverse generation!"

Eric drew h