r it, reasonable excuse. I'm a--well,
I'm not a thief--or a fool, quite, I hope. I can provide for you
comfortably and I'll do my level best to be a good husband to you. If
there was any excuse for his hating me, any except that idiotic spirit
craziness of his. And what right has he to order you around? A hundred
years or so ago fathers used to order their sons and daughters to marry
this one or the other, and if they didn't mind they disinherited 'em, or
threw 'em out of doors, or some such stuff. At least, that's the way it
worked, according to the books and plays. But that doesn't go nowadays.
What right has he--"

But again she touched his lips.

"Don't, Nelson, please," she said, gently. "Rights haven't anything to
do with it, of course. You know they haven't, don't you? You know it's
just--just that things are AS they are and that's all. If father was as
he used to be, his real self, and he behaved toward you as he is doing,
I shouldn't hesitate at all. I should marry you and feel I was doing
exactly right. But now--"

She stopped and he, stooping, caught a gleam of moisture where the
moonlight touched her cheek. He put his arm about her waist.

"Don't, dear," he said, hastily. "I'm sorry. Forgive me, will you? Of
course you're dead right and I've been talking like a jackass. I'll
behave, honest I will.... But what ARE we going to do? I won't give you
up, you know, no matter if every spirit control in--in wherever they
come from orders me to."

She smiled. "Of course we're not going to give each other up," she
declared. "As for what we're going to do, I don't know. I suppose there
is nothing to do for the present except to wait and--and hope father may
change his mind. That's all, isn't it?"

He shook his head. "Waiting is a pretty slow game," he said. "I wonder,
if I pretended to fall in love with Marietta Hoag, if those Chinese
spooks of hers would send word to Cap'n Jeth that I was really a fairly
decent citizen. Courting Marietta would be hard medicine to take, but if
it worked a cure we might try it. What do you think?"

"I should be afraid that the remedy might be worse than the disease.
Once in Marietta's clutches how would you get away?"

"Oh, that would be easy. I'd have Doctor Powers swear that I had been
suffering from temporary softening of the brain and wasn't accountable
for what I'd been doing."

"She might not believe it."

"Maybe not, but everybody else would. Nothing milder than softe