ook'n her bag to the Ruin before supper, and he was to come
for her there at midnight. Reckon it's past that now. They've done
gone!"

"Gone?" The word was a gasping cry. "Gone--where?"

"I dunno. The city, I reckon, or wherever he lives at.--Oh, my Gawd,
lissen at that!" The wind struck the house a great buffet, and the
thunder was rattling steadily as artillery now.

Kate's knees refused to support her. She held herself upright by
clinging to the bed.

The sight of the Madam thus stricken and speechless sobered Mag out of
her own fears. She bethought herself suddenly of the letter Jacqueline
had left for her mother.

"Here! Maybe it says in the letter where she's gone at. Don't look that
way, Miss Kate! I wa'n't to give you the letter till mornin', but here
it is. You kin have it now, see, Miss Kate!"

Only a few sentences of the long, incoherent screed in her hand
penetrated to Kate's brain.

I can't bear to leave you, I just can't bear it; but I love him so,
Mummy!--He needs me, and you don't. He can't finish his book
without me.--We're going abroad, and I'll study my singing while he
writes. Some day you'll be proud of your little girl--You said when
the time came to take my life in my two hands, and it's come. You
know it is not his fault that we can't be married right away--but
what does all that matter? You'll be the first to understand,
because I'm doing just what you would have done for Philip's
father, if it hadn't been for us children. I know! I understand you
so well, darling Mummy. I'm your own child.--We're not niggardly
lovers, you and I! We're not afraid to give all we have--

Kate uttered a hoarse exclamation, and dropped the letter. Her moment of
helplessness had passed. She ran down stairs, two steps at a time, Mag
at her heels. She jerked open the side door, and was almost driven from
her feet by a great gust of driving rain. It was Mag who wrapped around
her the first cloak that came to hand, the big, hooded cape Jacqueline
had worn the night before, Kate stopped for nothing except to seize the
rawhide whip which hung on its accustomed nail beside the door.

"What you goin' to do with that?" gasped Mag.

"My pistols are upstairs," muttered the other.

Mag stood at the door as long as she could, catching glimpses as the
lightning flashed of a shrouded, hooded figure running with the wind,
fast, fast, like some wild witch abroad upon