e rough board floor, her sightless eyes raised to the wall of logs and
mud, her frantic prayer to have this only brother kept safe and sent
back to her; but, if he were about to sin a certain sin, to strike him
dead.

She was too deeply moved to speak, and indeed she felt that words would
be out of place in this pause which seemed so eloquent of a curiously
comforting holiness. On his own part, he merely sat there looking down
at his awkward boots. Finally, with sincere, trembling regret in his
voice, he murmured:

"I'm sorry ye've a headache."

"Thank you, Dale." Her reply was tenderer than she knew, for now he
still further appealed to her. From men in the valley, this solicitation
might probably have denoted no more than ordinary politeness, but she
knew from experience that the phlegmatic mountaineers must be moved by
strong emotion to sympathize with one in pain. "It's all gone, now," she
added.

"Whoop-ee!" he gave a sudden yell, at the same time springing into the
air and striking his heels twice together in a wild dance of joy.
"Whoop-ee!" he yelled again. "Git hit, 'n' let's begin! Git hit, I say!"

"Dale!" she cried in consternation, drawing back from him. "Are you
mad?"

"Bob said ye couldn't teach 'counten yo' haid," he breathlessly
continued, his face glowing with excited pleasure. "But now ye kin! Now
ye kin git the book 'n' give me my larnin', can't ye?"

He was looking down at her with an expression she had never beheld in
anyone's face--enthusiasm, wildness, even madness; but his eyes were not
seeing her. They missed the parted, startled lips, the heightened color
of her oval cheeks, the pulsing throat, and the frightened breathing.
They watched only for her to produce the key to his religion--a book.

And she read this in his burning eyes as though it were written there in
cold, black, selfish letters. A deep smouldering and immoderate anger
seized her. That this man who had seemed such a power of softness should
so show himself to be a thing of self-centered flint, wounded her; and
Jane rebelled at wounds. For the moment they stared, seemingly
hypnotized; until at last her voice came as low and expressionless as
his had been full of fire.

"Sit down. I'll get a book, but before you look into it you shall learn
a lesson that will be more useful."

He obediently dropped into his chair, but she remained standing and, in
the same monotone, said:

"You've told me about your Sunlight Patch, an