ll the time
he was watching Edward Conway--the yearning look--turned half
pleadingly to the bar--the gulpings which swallowed nothing.

Presently Jud looked up. He heard the tinkle of glasses, and Billy
Buch stood before them with two long toddies on a silver waiter. The
ice tinkled and glittered in the deep glasses--the cherries and
pineapple gleamed amid it and the whiskey--the rich red whiskey!

"My treat--an' no charges, gentlemen! Compliments of Billy Buch."

Conway looked at the tempting glass for a moment in the terrible
agony of indecision. Then remorse, fear, shame, frenzy, seized him:

"No--no--I've sworn off, Billy--I'll swear I have. My God, but I'm a
Conway again"--and before the words were fairly out of his mouth he
had seized the glass and swallowed the contents.

It was nearly dark when Helen, quitting the mill immediately on its
closing, slipped out of a side door to escape Richard Travis and
almost ran home across the fields. Never had she been so full of her
life, her plans for the future, her hopes, her pride to think her
father would be himself again.

"For if he will," she whispered, "all else good will follow."

Just at the gate she stopped and almost fell in the agony of it all.
Her father lay on the dry grass by the roadside, unable to walk.

She knelt by his side and wept. Her heart then and there gave up--her
soul quit in the fight she was making.

With bitterness which was desperate she went to the spring and
brought water and bathed his face. Then when he was sufficiently
himself to walk, she led him, staggering, in, and up the steps.

Jud Carpenter reached the mill an hour after dark: He sought out
Richard Travis and chuckled, saying nothing.

Travis was busy with his books, and when he had finished he turned
and smiled at the man.

"Tell me what it is?"

"Oh, I fixed him, that's all."

Then he laughed:

"He was sober this morning an' was in a fair way to knock our plans
sky high--as to the gal, you kno'. Reformed this mornin', but you'll
find him good and drunk to-night."

"Oh," said Travis, knitting his brows thoughtfully.

"Did you notice how much brighter, an' sech, she's been for a day or
two?" asked Jud.

"I notice that she has shunned me all day"--said Travis--"as if I
were poison."

"She'll not shun you to-morrow," laughed Jud. "She is your's--for a
woman desperate is a woman lost--" and he chuckled again as he went
out.

CHAPTER XIII

HIMSELF AGAI