_before the
child_."

John Hunter's face turned scarlet, his cheeks stung as if he had been
slapped; she was not giving in at all! He stood before her incensed beyond
words for a moment, breathing hard and almost bursting with what he
considered the insult of it; then the blood which had mounted to his head
receded and left him deadly white.

"I don't exactly understand you," he said in level tones, "but you shall
understand me. I will never be made a fool of by you again; if you're
going to run things, say it out, and I'll let you have it and run it
alone."

It was hopeless; she did not reply, but stitched in and out on Jack's
little frock, sick at heart with the shame of such a quarrel, since it was
to accomplish nothing.

"Answer me!" he thundered.

Elizabeth laid her sewing on the lounge beside her, and rose to her feet.
She looked him squarely in the face and answered as he demanded.

"I will sign no papers of which I do not approve, and certainly none which
I have been deceived about in any way. Aside from that you are free to run
the farm as you wish."

"Then take the whole damned thing, and I'll go back to mother and make a
home for her. She was never allowed to have a home in this house after you
came into it," he flung out. "I'll take the Mitchell County land, and you
can have what's here. That's what you and Hornby and Hansen planned from
the first, I should judge. That's why you got Noland to do it."

Thrusting his hat down to his very ears, he strode from the house,
swinging the screen door behind him so hard that it broke and the split
corner fell out and hung dangling by the net, which kept the splintered
frame from falling to the ground.

Elizabeth closed the panelled door to keep out the flies, and turned
quietly to the bedroom for her bonnet. She spoke to Hepsie, who had heard
the entire argument, as she passed through the kitchen, asking her to keep
Jack for her, and walked through the barnyard, through the wet pasture,
and on to her haunt in the willows, where she could think undisturbed.

John was still standing in the harness room of the barn when he heard the
door close behind Elizabeth, and saw her coming that way.

Elizabeth was coming to the barn! He gave a start of surprise. Even while
he had not given up all thought of her coming to his terms, he wondered at
her giving in so promptly. John drew back so that she should not see that
he was watching her. When she did not immediately