leaming
eyes fastened on her white face, "Well?" he said.

She stood looking up at the glory of the sky above her, where the stars
glittered with extraordinary brilliancy, and in an abstracted tone she
observed, "There's the 'Dipper.'"

He watched her still silently; she went on: "Do you remember, Jim, when
I taught school down in Westbury, how we used to look at the 'Dipper'
together, because you didn't dare speak--of anything else? You got seven
dollars a week, then, and I--oh, Jim! why in God's name _didn't_ you
speak? Then I might never have come to this." She struck the lintel of
the door passionately, but went right on: "Yes--yes, I'm going to tell
you, and you've got to make a decision, right here, _now_! You'll think
I'm mad, I know; but see here now, I've got that woman's dying eyes
looking into mine; I've got that woman's voice in my ears, and her words
burnt into my living heart! I'll tell you by and by, perhaps, what
those words are, but first, my proposal: you are free to accept it, you
are free to refuse it, or you are free to curse me for a drivelling
idiot; but look you here, man, if you _laugh_ at it, I swear I'll _kill_
you! Now, will you help me out of this awful life? Jim, will you get
into that carriage and take me to the nearest minister and marry me, or
will you take this 'wad' and go down that street and out of my life
forever?"

In the pause that followed they looked hard into one another's eyes.
Then the man answered in six words. Pushing away the hand that offered
him a great tight-rolled mass of paper money, he said, "Put that
away--now, come on," and they entered the carriage, and drove to the
home of a minister. There a curious thing happened. They had answered
satisfactorily the reverend gentleman's many questions before he quite
realized _who_ the woman was. When he did recognize her, he refused to
perform the ceremony, and with words of contemptuous condemnation
literally drove them from the house, and with his ecclesiastical hand
banged the door after them.

They visited another minister, and their second experience differed from
their first in two points,--the gentleman was quicker in his recognition
and refusal, and refrained from banging the door. And so they drove up
and down and across the city, till at last they stood at the carriage
door and looked helpless at each other. Then the man said, "That's the
last one, Kate," and the woman answered, "Yes, I know--I know." She drew