she moaned, in distress.

"Dat's too bad--but dis t'ing ain' no doin's wit' me. Dere's wan t'ing
in dis worl' mus' live forever, an' dat's love--if we kill 'im den it's
purty poor place for stoppin' in. I'm cut off my han' for help you,
Necia, but I can't be husban' to no woman in fun."

"Your foolish head is full of romance," she burst out. "You think
you're doing me a favor, but you're not. Why, there's Runnion--he wants
me so much that he'd 'even marry me'!" Her wild laughter stabbed the
man. "Was ever a girl in such a fix! I've been made love to ever since
I was half a woman, but at thought of a priest men seem to turn pale
and run like whipped dogs. I'm only good enough for a bad man and a
gambler, I suppose." She sank to a seat, flung out her arms hopelessly,
and, bowing her head, began to weep uncontrollably. "If--if--I only had
a woman to talk to--but they are all men--all men."

Poleon waited patiently until her paroxysm of sobbing had passed, then
gently raised her and led her out through the back door into the summer
day, which an hour ago had been so bright and promising and was now so
gray and dismal. He followed her with his eyes until she disappeared
inside the log-house.

"An' dat's de end of it all," he mused. "Five year I've wait--an' jus'
for dis."

Meade Burrell never knew how he gained his quarters, but when he had
done so he locked his door behind him, then loosed his hold on things
material. He raged about the room like a wild animal, and vented his
spite on every inanimate thing that lay within reach. His voice was
strange in his own ears, as was the destructive frenzy that possessed
him. In time he grew quieter, as the physical energy of this brutal
impulse spent itself; but there came no surcease of his mental
disquiet. As yet his mind grasped but dully the fact that she was to
marry another, but gradually this thought in turn took possession of
him. She would be a wife in two days. That great, roistering, brown man
would fold her to himself--she would yield to him every inch of her
palpitant, passionate body. The thought drove the lover frantic, and he
felt that madness lay that way if he dwelt on such fancies for long. Of
a sudden he realized all that she meant to him, and cursed himself
anew. While he had the power to possess her he had dallied and
hesitated, but now that he had no voice in it, now that she was
irretrievably beyond his reach, he vowed to snatch her and hold her
agains