studied her from beneath his overhanging
eyebrows as intently, as alertly, as silently as he was wont to do when
watching the faces of his opponents in a game of high hazard. There was
something uncanny, almost elfish, in the woman's voice and eyes, and yet
even before her words were fully uttered the truth stood revealed to
him. His eyes lost their stern glare, his hands, which had clutched the
arms of his chair, relaxed. "Are you sure?" he asked again, but more
gently. "You've got to be sure," he ended, almost in menace.

"You may trust a jealous woman," she answered. "I don't blame
them--observe that. We are the ones to blame--we who are crippled and in
the way, and it is our duty to take ourselves off. What is the use of
spoiling their lives just for a few years of selfish gratification of
our own miserable selves?"

He felt about for comfort. "They are young; they can wait," he
stammered, huskily.

"But they _won't_ wait!" she replied. "Love like theirs can't wait.
Don't you understand? They are in danger of forgetting themselves? Can't
you see it? Ben talks of nothing else, dreams of nothing else but her,
and she is fighting temptation every day, and shows it. It's all so
plain to me that I can't bear to see them together. They have loved each
other from the very first night they met--I felt it that day we first
rode together. I've watched her grow into Ben's life till she absorbs
his every thought. He's a good boy, and I want to keep him so. He
respects your claim, and he is trying to be loyal to me, but he can't
hold out. I am ready to sacrifice myself, but that would not save him.
He loves your wife, and until you free her he is in danger of wronging
her and himself and you. I've given up. There is nothing more on this
earth for me! What do _you_ expect to gain by holding to a wife's
garment when she--the woman--is gone?"

The wildness in her eyes and voice profoundly affected Haney, who was
without subtlety in affairs of the heart. The women he had known had
been mainly coarse-fibred or of brutish directness of passion and
purpose, and this woman's words and tone at once confused and appalled
him. All she said of his unworthiness as a husband was true. He had gone
to Sibley at first to win Bertha at less cost than making her his
wife--but of that he had repented, and on his death-bed (as he thought)
he had sought to endow her with his gold. Since then he had lived, but
only as half a man. Up to this moment