ch began about a mile and a half
away, straight down the pasture hollow. He glanced up at the
window, raised his black slouch hat, and nodded with the
self-conscious, self-assured grin of the desired of women. She
tried to return this salute with a pleasant smile. He entered
the gate and she heard his boots upon the front steps.

Now away across the hollow another figure appeared--a man on
horseback coming through the wheat fields. He was riding toward
the farther gate of the pasture at a leisurely dignified pace.
She had only made out that he had abundant whiskers when the
sound of a step upon the stairs caused her to turn. As that step
came nearer her heart beat more and more wildly. Her wide eyes
fixed upon the open door of the room. It was her Uncle George.

"Sit down," he said as he reached the threshold. "I want
to talk to you."

She seated herself, with hands folded in her lap. Her head was
aching from the beat of the blood in her temples.

"Zeke and I have talked it over," said Warham. "And we've
decided that the only thing to do with you is to get you
settled. So in a few minutes now you're going to be married."

Her lack of expression showed that she did not understand. In
fact, she could only feel--feel the cruel, contemptuous anger of
that voice which all her days before had caressed her.

"We've picked out a good husband for you," Warham continued.
"It's Jeb Ferguson."

Susan quivered. "I--I don't want to," she said.

"It ain't a question of what you want," retorted Warham roughly.
He was twenty-four hours and a night's sleep away from his first
fierce outblazing of fury--away from the influence of his wife
and his daughter. If it had not been for his brother Zeke,
narrow and cold, the event might have been different. But Zeke
was there to keep his "sense of duty" strong. And that he might
nerve himself and hide and put down any tendency to be a
"soft-hearted fool"--a tendency that threatened to grow as he
looked at the girl--the child--he assumed the roughest manner he
could muster.

"It ain't a question of what you want," he repeated. "It's a
question of what's got to be done, to save my family and you,
too--from disgrace. We ain't going to have any more bastards in
this family."

The word meant nothing to the girl. But the sound of it, as her
uncle pronounced it, made her feel as though the blood were
drying up in her veins.

"We ain't going to take any chances," pursu