unabout waiting before the gate. At sight of her he pulled up
short.

"Ah, here you are," he said.

"Yes, here I am," was her reply.

"You doubtless know what I've been told," he stated, significantly.

"No, I don't. I can only suspect."

"Is it true you've been meeting this man Weir on the quiet? Meeting
him while engaged to me? You know what I think of him, and what every
other respectable person thinks of him."

"Was that Mr. Burkhardt's report? That I am meeting Mr. Weir on the
quiet, to use your words?" she countered.

Sorenson made an angry gesture at what he considered an evasion.

"Janet, listen. He said he saw you at the edge of town, that you
were both bare-headed, standing close together, arms locked. Good
heavens, can't you imagine my feelings on hearing what he had to
say! He stopped me on the street and drew me aside to put me on my
guard, he said. Burkhardt wouldn't just make up a yarn like that
against you, and he's a good friend of mine. He didn't say half
what he suggested."

The girl turned her face towards the house, shut her eyes for an
instant. She could picture the rider's brutal leering face and
unspoken insinuations; and her brain also placed in the scene her
lover greedily if angrily drinking in the tale. Harkening to it
instead of knocking the man down, that was the worst of it.
Harkening--and believing.

"I'll not deign to resent your remark of meeting Mr. Weir 'on the
quiet'," said she, quietly. "I met him on the road accidentally."

"Don't you think I'm entitled to know something about it?" he asked,
with an edged tone.

"What is it you desire to know?"

Nearly an oath of wrath escaped his mouth, but he kept his control.

"Janet, you know what kind of a man he is," he said. "You know what I
feel against him, and father, and all our friends, and the town. And
the whole town, too, will probably hear of this, with a lot of gossip
added that isn't true."

"But I met him accidentally."

"You didn't have to chat with him like an old friend."

Janet Hosmer gave him a slow, meditative look.

"How do you know how I talked with him?"

"You talked with him. That in itself was too much."

"I don't view it in that light," she responded. "He was perfectly
civil. Whatever public opinion may be regarding the shooting, I know
he killed the man in self-defence. So that's nothing against him. You
would have done the same in his place."

Ed Sorenson leaned towards her.

"You were