cask, make the bar_rel_. Cap' Girardeau,
oh, perhaps two--t'ree day. Me, I walk heem once, maybe so feefty
mile, maybe so seexty mile, in wan day, two-t'ree a little more
tam, me. I was more younger then. But now my son he'll live on
St. Genevieve, French place there, perhaps thirtee mile. Cap'
Girardeau, seventy-five mile. You'll want for go there?" he added
cunningly.

"Sometime," she remarked calmly. Eleazar was shrewd in his own
way. He strolled off to find his spade.

Before she could resume the conversation Josephine heard behind her
in the hall a step, which already she recognized. Dunwody greeted
her at the door, frowning as he saw her sudden shrinking back at
sight of him.

"Good morning," he said. "You have, I hope, slept well. Have you
and Eleazar here planned any way to escape as yet?" He smiled at
her grimly. Eleazar had shuffled away.

"Not yet."

"You had not come along so far as details then;" smilingly.

"You intruded too soon."

"At least you are frank, then! You will never get away from here
excepting on one condition."

She made no answer, but looked about her slowly. Her eyes rested
upon a little inclosed place where some gray stones stood upright
in the grass; the family burial place, not unusual in such
proximity to the abode of the living, in that part of the country
at the time.

"One might escape by going there!" she pointed.

"They are my own, who sleep there," he said simply but grimly. "I
wish it might be your choice; but not now; not yet. We've a lot of
living to do yet, both of us."

She caught no note of relenting in his voice. He looked large and
strong, standing there at the entrance to his own home. At length
he turned to her, sweeping out his arm once more in a gesture
including the prospect which lay before them.

"If you could only find it in your heart," he exclaimed, "how much
I could do for you, how much you could do for me. Look at all
this. It's a home, but it's just a desert--a desert--the way it is
now."

"Has it always been so?"

"As long as I can remember."

"So you desire to make all life a desert for me! It is very noble
of you!"

Absorbed, he seemed not to hear her. "Suppose you had met me the
way people usually meet--and you some time had allowed me to come
and address you--could you have done that, do you reckon?" He
turned to her, an intent frown on his face, unsmiling.

"That's a question which here at least is absurd