ev walked through ther
Valley of Death fer me--an' I've got ter break my heart fer a man thet
don't hold me good enough ter wed."

Yet even now she was making excuses for the lover who had neither come
nor written. The first bond between Turner and herself had been their
common revolt against a life of squalid ignorance and emptiness. That
revolt had carried them into the no-man's land of discontent without
bringing them to the other side: the line of real attainment upon which
Jerry stood secure.

Her father came once to the door, but did not enter it. His bearded
face was more soberly patriarchal than ever. He had long struggled
against violence in his efforts to shepherd a wild and turbulent flock.
He had pleaded for the Christ-law of forgiven sins, but in his veins
ran the unforgetting blood of warring generations. There had been times
of late when he had felt that he would need God's help and restraint
should he ever meet the man who had broken his daughter's heart.

"I reckon thar hain't sca'cely nothin' I kin say ter console her," he
mused as he turned away from the door.

At length when the fire had burned low Blossom went to bed and lay
wide-eyed for other hours.

Through the harping wind in the evergreens sometimes came the high,
wild note of southward-winging ducks and geese--refugees from winter.
Henceforth her life was all to be winter. Neither the freshly green and
tuneful things of springtime nor the gorgeousness and fragrance of
autumn could amend or temper its lethargy.

She had tossed until nearly dawn, and the house lay deadly quiet. If
sleep came near her it was only to veer away again for each sputter of
a dying ember brought her, with a start, into tenser wakefulness.

Then came another sound, and her nervous little body tightened into the
dismay of panic. Unmoving, holding her breath between pressed lips, she
strained her ears. There was no mistake--she had heard it again.

It was a wild note riding the wind, and now for the first time it
became more than a legend in her experience. From babyhood she had
heard of this night noise, long silenced by the truce, and had trembled
at its portentousness. She had from childhood heard her father thank
God that men were no more roused by it from their sleep: that it was
one accursed thing which belonged to the past. Now it had found
resurrection!

As she lay listening it sounded once more, nearer than before, a shout
suggestive of a wild-cat's wa