they
had no understanding for a woman who asserted herself in positive terms
of personality. To them a "he-woman" who "wore pants" and admitted no
sex inferiority was at best a "hussy without shame." If such a woman
chanced also to be beautiful beyond comparison with her less favored
sisters, the conclusion was inescapable. They could read in her
self-claimed emancipation only the wildness of a filly turned out to
pasture without halter or hobble; the wildness of one who scorns
respectability; for primitive morality is pathetically narrow. It may
sing piously about the pyre of a burning witch, but it can hardly grasp
the pagan chastity of a Diana.

And it was a Diana both chaste and vital who stood in this wide-flung
door. Behind her far radiant background was the full light of a young
day. For an instant the scowl of storm-laden skies broke into a smile
of sunlight as though she had brought the brightness with her. But she
stood poised in an attitude of arrested action--halted by the curb of
anxiety. The whole vitality and clean vigor of her seemed breathless
and questioning. Fear had spurred her into fleetness as she had
crossed the hills, yet now she hesitated on the threshold. At first
her eyes could make little of the inner murk, where both lamp and fire
had guttered low and gray shadows held dominance.

But she herself stood illumined by that transitory flash of morning
sun. It played in an aura about the coppery coils of her hair and
kindled into vivid color the lips parted in suspense.

After a moment her eyes had reaccommodated themselves to the
dispiriting darkness and her bosom heaved to a sigh of relief; of
thanksgiving. Under the heaped coverlets of the bed she had seen the
movement of feeble hand stirred in a gesture of welcome.

The neighbor women, bent on a mission of charity, yet unable to lay
aside their hard convictions, gazed non-committally on, as though they
would draw aside their skirts from contamination, yet sought to do so
with the least possible measure of ostentation or offense.

That attitude Alexander did not fail to comprehend but she ignored it,
giving back to the smouldering eyes of disapproval level look for look.
Then she said quietly: "Brother Sanders, kin I hev speech with him--or
must he lay plum quiet?"

The man of healing passed a bewildered hand across his tousled
forehead, and with thin fingers combed his long beard.

"He ought, properly speakin', ter stay qu