m to other hands and other influences. Today--now--she
must act. And this left her helpless, because she could find no way. His
nature had made a complete revolution in that moment of crisis before
the sheriff came; his words had carried her beyond her understanding of
him! She did not know this new Dale, and how could she re-establish
faith with a stranger?

But at any hazard it must be tried. Were she to fail him, he would be
like a compass with no magnetic pole--spinning, vacillating. Suppose he
should go spinning off from his now safe orbit? And then suppose he
should come rushing back to her for help?--could she ever again enter
those former halls of confidence with this new, strange man, as he had
grown to be?

This was the price, she told herself, of having been weaker than he; of
having behaved more ignobly! The contemplation of it sapped her
self-assurance, and as self-assurance vanished there began to enter a
new feeling which she unwillingly recognized as fear.

She was not afraid of Dale--not the man! No personal element had ever
existed between them. But she was most decidedly afraid of the
far-reaching consequences which might be wrought by her failure to hold
him steadfast. For if he could rise to a place whose height had dazzled
her, why should she not in his eyes have sunk as astonishingly low? By
what incentive would he then come again for guidance? How could she have
the effrontery to offer it?

Between remorseless reasonings and the stings of wounded pride, she
pressed her face still deeper into the old sofa.

It must have been an hour later when she sprang up and looked anxiously
at the darkening windows. She had formed no definite plan, but her
dominant impulse was to act before he should have a night to analyse, to
settle, to censure. Stopping at the first wall mirror she made a few
touches to her hair and searched her face for signs of tears; then
passed out, closing the heavy door with a firmness which might have
meant all fears were shut within.

At the library she hesitated, experiencing a momentary relief when it
was found to be deserted. She went to the porch but it, too, was vacant;
and as far as she could see out through the grounds no one stirred. Yet,
as her search continued, her self-assurance came bounding back, and when
she started across the grass to an old arbor, where he had sometimes
been known to go at this hour, she became once more the courageous,
dauntless mountain girl