be true; and it also
may be that what Kernaghan thought possible, the Young Doctor thought
possible; but he also felt that things must be as they must be.

In any case Kernaghan was right; for while the little flamboyant lady
from Slow Down Ranch was busy in the front garden, Louise Mazarine was
with her wounded guest, with the man who had saved her husband's money
and perhaps his life. The wounded guest regarded his wound as a blessing
almost. Perhaps that was why he did not notice that his host had only
been silently grateful.

CHAPTER VIII. THE ORIENTAL WAY OF IT

Orlando Guise's mother was lacking in the caution which mothers
generally have where their men-children are concerned. If she had had
sense, she would have insisted on removing Orlando to Slow Down Ranch
at the earliest possible moment, even at some risk to his physical
well-being. She ought to have seen that Joel Mazarine was possessed of
a jealousy as unreasoning as that of an animal; she ought to have
discouraged Louise's kindnesses. If the kindnesses had been only the
ordinary acts of a mistress of a house to a guest who had saved her
husband's life--dishes made by her own hand, strengthening drinks,
flowers picked and arranged by herself--there could have been no
cause for nervousness. Each thing done by Louise, however, came from a
personally and emotionally solicitous interest. It was to be seen in
the glance of the eye, in the voice a little unsteady, in girlish
over-emphasis, in that shining something in the face, which, in Ireland,
they call the love-light.

So great was Mrs. Guise's vanity, so intense her content in her son, so
proud was she of other people's admiration of him, no matter who they
were, that she welcomed Louise's attentions. Kernaghan was wrong.
Mazarine had not forbidden Louise to enter Orlando's room. That was
the contradictory nature of the man. His innate savagery made him brood
wickedly over her natural housewifery attentions to the man who had
probably saved his own life, and certainly had saved him six thousand
dollars; yet it was as though he must see the worst that might happen,
must even encourage a danger which he dreaded. When the Methodist
minister from Askatoon came to offer prayer for Orlando, Joel joined
in it with all the unction of a class-leader, while every word of the
prayer trembled in an atmosphere of hatred. As Patsy Kernaghan said, he
himself watched, and he paid the Chinaman to watch, in the vai