le wife. You needn't look shocked. It's all for the
sake of that chap's morals. Do you think I can do it?"

"I don't want you to do it, Nap," she said earnestly.

He dropped the subject instantly. "Your wish is law. There is only one
other person in this world who can command my implicit obedience in this
fashion. So I hope you appreciate your power."

"And that other is Lucas?" said Anne.

He nodded. "Luke the irresistible! Did you ever try to resist him?"

She shook her head with a smile.

"Take my advice then," he said. "Never do! He could whip creation with
his hands tied behind him. Oh, I know you all think him mild-tempered and
easy-going, more like a woman than a man. But you wait till you're hard
up against him. Then you'll know what I mean when I tell you he's
colossal." There was a queer ring of passion in his voice as he ended. It
sounded to Anne like the half-stifled cry of a wounded animal.

Because of it she repressed the impulse to ask him what he meant.
Nevertheless, after a moment, as if impelled by some hidden force, he
continued.

"There was a time when I thought of him much as you do. And then one day
there came a reckoning--an almighty big reckoning." He leaned back in his
chair and stared upwards, while the grim lines of his mouth tightened.
"It was down in Arizona. We fought a duel that lasted a day and a night.
He was a worse cripple in those days than he is now, but he won out--he
won out." Again came the cynical drawl, covering his actual feelings as
with an impenetrable veil. "I've had a kind of respect for him ever
since," he said. "One does, you know."

"One would," said Anne, and again refrained from asking questions.

She was thinking of the complete confidence with which Lucas had spoken
of his ascendency over this man.

Finishing luncheon they went out over the common that stretched from the
very door, down the hill-side of short, sun-baked grass, passing between
masses of scorched broom, whose bursting pods crackled perpetually in the
sunshine, till they came to the green shade of forest trees and the gleam
of a running stream.

The whirr of grasshoppers filled the air and the humming of insects
innumerable. Away in the distance sounded the metal clang of a cow-bell.
It was the only definite sound that broke the stillness. The heat was
intense. A dull, copper haze had risen and partially obscured the sun.

Anne stopped on the edge of the stream. Wonderful dragon-flies such