my word. While Jim
drinks I won't take him back; he's disinherited. I'll give him nothing now
or hereafter. Save him for four years--if he can do that he will do
all--and there's five millions as sure as the sun's in heaven. Amen and
amen."

He opened the door. There was a strange, soft light in her eyes as she
came to go.

"Aren't you going to kiss me?" she said, looking at him whimsically.

He was disconcerted. She did not wait, but reached up and kissed him on
the cheek. "Good-bye," she said, with a smile. "We'll win the stake.
Good-bye."

An instant and she was gone. He shut the door, then turned and looked in a
mirror on the wall. Abstractedly he touched the cheek she had kissed.
Suddenly a change passed over his face. He dropped in a chair, and his
fist struck the table as he said: "By God, she may do it, she may do it!
But it's life and death--it's life and death."

Society had its sensation, and then the veil dropped. For a long time none
looked behind it except Jim's father. He had too much at stake not to have
his telescope upon them. A detective followed them to keep Jim's record.
But this they did not know.

II

From the day they left Washington Jim put his life and his fate in his
wife's hands. He meant to follow her judgment, and, self-willed and strong
in intellect as he was, he said that she should have a fair chance of
fulfilling her purpose. There had been many _pour parlers_ as to what Jim
should do. There was farming. She set that aside, because it meant
capital, and it also meant monotony and loneliness; and capital was
limited, and monotony and loneliness were bad for Jim, deadening an active
brain which must not be deprived of stimulants--stimulants of a different
sort, however, from those which had heretofore mastered it. There was the
law. But Jim would have to become a citizen of Canada, change his flag,
and where they meant to go--to the outskirts--there would be few
opportunities for the law; and with not enough to _do_ there would be
danger. Railway construction? That seemed good in many ways, but Jim had
not the professional knowledge necessary; his railway experience with his
father had only been financial. Above all else he must have
responsibility, discipline, and strict order in his life.

"Something that will be good for my natural vanity, and knock the nonsense
out of me," Jim agreed, as they drew farther and farther away from
Washington and the past, and nearer and nearer t