here were on the surface certain
plain facts. No matter what she had felt toward Gratton before, she
detested him now; no matter what he might have appeared in San
Francisco, here in his unaccustomed garb he looked to her puny, shallow,
and contemptible. He was, as she had told him, a beast. He had betrayed
her confidence; he had taken advantage of her headlong youth; he had
displayed to her view the vileness within him. He loved her, did he? So
much the better. It lay within her power, then, to repay him, if only in
part, for what he had made her suffer.

* * * * *

"I repeat, Miss Gloria," Gratton was saying, a stubborn look in his
eyes, "that you promised to marry me. You have had a hard day, I
realize; there has been much to unnerve you. I erred in haste, perhaps;
I should have waited until you had a night's rest. But you know why I
did not wait. It was for your sake."

Gloria heard him through with a hard little smile.

"Nothing is further from my intention, Mr. Gratton," she told him icily,
"than to marry you. Now or ever. Please let us consider the matter
closed once and for all."

His fingers worked nervously at his sides. Gloria chose the moment to
lift her eyes again fleetingly to King's. She wanted Gratton to see, she
wanted to hurt him all that she could. She looked back to see him wince.
Nor did his quick contraction of the brows result from her glance alone;
he had seen the look lying unhidden in King's eyes. Mark King had
to-night, for the first time, swept barriers aside and looked straight
into his own heart and known that all of the love that was in him to
give had been given to Gloria Gaynor; he had come from Jim's cabin to
look on her for the last time; he was giving her up. And then, when he
had turned away rather than hear her murmur "Yes," she had cried out
ringingly: "No!" The sod had not fallen upon a beloved face; death had
not entered the door; life was not extinguished--where there was life
invariably there was hope--he had given Gloria up, yes; but she had come
back from beyond the frontier, she had come calling to him. He was
certain of nothing just now beyond the tremendous, all-excluding fact
that, wise or fool, he loved her. He wanted her with a want that is
greater than hunger or thirst, or love of man for man or of man for life
itself. Much of this lay shining in his eyes for Gratton to read--or for
Gloria.

"I am no boy to be thrown aside like an