, "I
never can forgive myself. I can't understand it!" he broke out then, "if
you had been his wife, David Weatherbee would have been safe with us here,
to-day."

Miss Armitage started. She gave him a quick, searching glance, then sank
down upon the rock. She seemed suddenly exhausted, like a woman who,
hard-pressed in the midst of peril, finds unexpectedly a friendly
threshold.

Tisdale looked off to the brazen slopes of Cerberus. It was the first time
he had censured Weatherbee for anything, and suddenly, while he brooded,
protesting over that one paramount mistake, he felt himself unaccountably
responsible. He was seized with a compelling desire to, in some way, make
it up to her. "Come," he said, "you mustn't lose heart; to-morrow, when
you are rested, it will look easier. And the question of ready money need
not trouble you. Mrs. Weatherbee has reached the point where she has got
to hedge on the future. Make her an offer of five thousand dollars in
yearly payments, say, of fifteen hundred. She'll take it. Then, if you
agree, I will arrange a loan with a Seattle bank. I should allow enough
margin to cover the first reclamation expenses. Your fillers of alfalfa
and strawberries would bring swift returns, and before your orchards came
into bearing, your vineyards would pay the purchase price on the whole
tract."

He turned to her, smiling, and surprised a despair in her face that went
to his heart.

"I thought, I hoped you meant to buy this land," she said.

"So I did, so I do, unless you decide to. And if you undertake this
project, I pledge myself to see you through." His voice caught a pleading
undernote. "It rests with you. Above every one it rests with you to even
things for Weatherbee. Isn't that clear to you? Look ahead five years; see
this vale green and shady with orchards; the trees laden with harvest;
imagine his wife standing here on this bench, surveying it all. See her
waking to the knowledge she has let a fortune slip through her hands; see
her, the purchase price spent, facing the fact that another woman built
her faith on David Weatherbee; had the courage to carry out his scheme and
found it a bonanza. That is what is going to make her punishment strike
home."

Miss Armitage rose. She stood a moment watching his face, then, "How you
hate her!" she said.

"Hate?" Tisdale's laugh rang short and hard. "Well, I grant it; hate is
the word. I hate her so much I've known better than go where she was