de. My mother told me
that Satan had been given over under the blanket chattel mortgage, and
sold at the town livery stable to some purchaser, whom she did not know,
who had taken the horse out of the country. I reflected bitterly upon
the changes in my fortunes since the last time I rode this way.

At least I was not so much coward as to turn about. So presently I rode
up the little pitch from the trough road and pulled the gate latch with
my riding crop. And then, as though it were by appointment, precisely as
I saw her that morning last spring--a hundred years ago it seemed to
me--I saw Grace Sheraton coming down the walk toward me, tall, thin.
Alas! she did not fill my eye. She was elegantly clad, as usual. I had
liefer seen dress of skins. Her dainty boots clicked on the gravel. A
moccasin would not.

I threw my rein over the hook at the iron arm of the stone gate pillar
and, hat in hand, I went to meet her. I was an older man now. I was done
with roystering and fighting, and the kissing of country girls all
across the land. I did not prison Grace Sheraton against the stone gate
pillar now, and kiss her against her will until she became willing. All
I did was to lift her hand and kiss her finger tips.

She was changed. I felt that rather than saw it. If anything, she was
thinner, her face had a deeper olive tint, her eyes were darker. Her
expression was gay, feverish, yet not natural, as she approached. What
was it that sat upon her face--melancholy, or fear, or sorrow, or
resentment? I was never very bright of mind. I do not know.

"I am glad to see you," she said to me at length, awkwardly.

"And I to see you, of course." I misdoubt we both lied.

"It is very sad, your home-coming thus," she added; at which clue I
caught gladly.

"Yes, matters could hardly be worse for us."

"Your mother would not come to us. We asked her. We feel deeply
mortified. But now--we hope you both will come."

"We are beggars now, Miss Grace," I said. "I need time to look around,
to hit upon some plan of life. I must make another home for myself, and
for--"

"For me?" She faced me squarely now, eye to eye. A smile was on her
lips, and it seemed to me a bitter one, but I could not guess what was
hidden in her mind. I saw her cheek flush slowly, deeper than was usual
with a Sheraton girl.

"For my wife, as soon as that may be," I answered, as red as she.

"I learn that you did not see Colonel Meriwether," she went on politel