h the sneer, as you call him."

"There's a sort of a fate in it," said Ronicky slowly. "I don't think
I could promise. There's a chill in my bones that tells me I'm going
to meet up with him one of these days."

She gasped at that, and, stepping back from him, she appeared to be
searching her mind to discover something which would finally and
completely convince him. At length she found it.

"Do I look to you like a coward?" she said. "Do I seem to be
weak-kneed?"

He shook his head.

"And what will a woman fight hardest for?"

"For the youngsters she's got," said Ronicky after a moment's thought.
"And, outside of that, I suppose a girl will fight the hardest to
marry the gent she loves."

"And to keep from marrying a man she doesn't love, as she'd try to
keep from death?"

"Sure," said Ronicky. "But these days a girl don't have to marry that
way."

"I am going to marry the man with the sneer," she said simply enough,
and with dull, patient eyes she watched the face of Ronicky wrinkle
and grow pale, as if a heavy fist had struck him.

"You?" he asked. "You marry him?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"And you hate the thought of him!"

"I--I don't know. He's kind--"

"You hate him," insisted Ronicky. "And he's to have you, that
cold-eyed snake, that devil of a man?" He moved a little, and she
turned toward him, smiling faintly and allowing the light to come more
clearly and fully on her face. "You're meant for a king o' men, lady;
you got the queen in you--it's in the lift of your head. When you find
the gent you can love, why, lady, he'll be pretty near the richest man
in the world!"

The ghost of a flush bloomed in her cheeks, but her faint smile did
not alter, and she seemed to be hearing him from far away. "The man
with the sneer," she said at length, "will never talk to me like that,
and still--I shall marry him."

"Tell me your name," said Ronicky Doone bluntly.

"My name is Ruth Tolliver."

"Listen to me, Ruth Tolliver: If you was to live a thousand years, and
the gent with the smile was to keep going for two thousand, it'd never
come about that he could ever marry you."

She shook her head, still watching him as from a distance.

"If I've crossed the country and followed a hard trail and come here
tonight and stuck my head in a trap, as you might say, for the sake of
a gent like Bill Gregg--fine fellow though he is--what d'you think I
would do to keep a girl like you from life-long misery?"