w it. A new force swept through him. It was the
force which comes of mastery, of possessorship, of fighting grimly
against odds. It rose in a mighty triumph. It told him this girl
belonged to him, that she was his to fight for. And he was going to
fight. Marette saw the change that came into his face. For a moment
after she had spoken there was silence between them. Outside the storm
beat in a fiercer blast. A roll of thunder crashed over the bungalow.
The windows rattled in a sweep of wind and rain. Kent, looking at her,
his muscles hardening, his face growing grimmer, nodded toward the
window at which Mooie's signal had come.

"It is a splendid night--for us," he said. "And we must go."

She did not answer.

"In the eyes of the law I am a murderer," he went on. "You saved me.
You shot a man. In those same eyes you are a criminal. It is folly to
remain here. It is sheer suicide for both of us. If Kedsty--"

"If Kedsty does not do what I told him to do to-night, I shall kill
him!" she said.

The quietness of her words, the steadiness of her eyes, held him
speechless. Again it seemed to him, as it had seemed to him in his room
at Cardigan's place, that it was a child who was looking at him and
speaking to him. If she had shown fear a few moments before, that fear
was not revealed in her face now. She was not excited. Her eyes were
softly and quietly beautiful. She amazed him and discomfited him.
Against that child-like sureness he felt himself helpless. Its potency
was greater than his strength and greater than his determination. It
placed between them instantly a vast gulf, a gulf that might be bridged
by prayer and entreaty, but never by force. There was no hint of
excitement in her threat against Kedsty, and yet in the very calmness
of it he felt its deadliness.

A whimsical half-smile was trembling on her lips again, and a warmer
glow came into her eyes. "Do you know," she said, "that according to an
old and sacred code of the North you belong to me?"

"I have heard of that code," he replied. "A hundred years ago I should
have been your slave. If it exists today, I am happy."

"Yes, you see the point, Jeems, don't you? You were about to die,
probably. I think they would have hanged you. And I saved your life.
Therefore your life belongs to me, for I insist that the code still
lives. You are my property, and I am going to do with you as I please,
until I turn you over to the Rivers. And you are not going toni