h the old fur cap looked out a pair of large
and brilliant black eyes, heavily lashed, and full of a smouldering
fire. Her skin was tanned and coarsened, but the warm crimson blood
glowed in her cheeks with a dusky richness, and her face was a perfect
oval, with features chiselled in almost classic regularity of outline.

Telford had a curious experience at that moment. He seemed to see,
looking out from behind this external mask of degraded beauty, the
semblance of what this woman might have been under more favouring
circumstance of birth and environment, wherein her rich, passionate
nature, potent for either good or evil, might have been trained and
swayed aright until it had developed grandly out into the glorious
womanhood the Creator must have planned for her. He knew, as if by
revelation, that this woman had nothing in common with the narrow,
self-righteous souls of Rykman's Corner. Warped and perverted though
her nature might be, she was yet far nobler than those who sat in
judgement upon her.

Min made some scanty purchases and left the store quickly, brushing
unheedingly past the minister as she did so. He saw her step on a
rough wood-sleigh and drive down the river road. The platform loungers
had been silent during her call, but now the talk bubbled forth anew.
Telford was sick at heart as he drove swiftly away. He felt for Min
Palmer a pity he could not understand or analyze. The attempt to
measure the gulf between what she was and what she might have been
hurt him like the stab of a knife.

He made several calls at various houses along the river during the
forenoon. After dinner he suddenly turned his horse towards the Palmer
place. Isaac Galletly, comfortably curled up in a neighbour's chimney
corner, saw him drive past.

"Ef the minister ain't goin' to Palmers' after all!" he chuckled.
"He's a set one when he does take a notion. Well, I warned him what to
expect. If Min claws his eyes out, he'll only have himself to blame."

Telford was not without his own misgivings as he drove into the Palmer
yard. He tied his horse to the fence and looked doubtfully about him.
Untrodden snowdrifts were heaped about the front door, so he turned
towards the kitchen and walked slowly past the bare lilac trees along
the fence. There was no sign of life about the place. It was beginning
to snow again, softly and thickly, and the hills and river were hidden
behind a misty white veil.

He lifted his hand to knock, but b