as
this? I wasn't even to have that solid thing to rest on, back of me,
after it all was over!"

They stood looking at her for a time, trying to catch and weigh her real
intent, to estimate what it might mean as to her actions.

"Like images, you are!" she went on hysterically, her physical craving
for one man, her physical loathing of another, driving her well-nigh
mad. "You wouldn't protect your own daughter!"--to her stupefied
parents. "Must I think for you at this hour of my life? How near--oh,
how near! But not now--not this way! No! No!"

"What do you mean, Molly?" demanded her father sternly. "Come now,
we'll have no woman tantrums at this stage! This goes on! They're
waiting! He's waiting!"

"Let him wait!" cried the girl in sudden resolution. All her soul was in
the cry, all her outraged, self-punished heart. Her philosophy fell from
her swiftly at the crucial moment when she was to face the kiss, the
embrace of another man. The great inarticulate voice of her woman nature
suddenly sounded, imperative, terrifying, in her own ears--"Oh, Will
Banion, Will Banion, why did you take away my heart?" And now she had
been on the point of doing this thing! An act of God had intervened.

Jesse Wingate nodded to the minister. They drew apart. The holy man
nodded assent, hurried away--the girl sensed on what errand.

"No use!" she said. "I'll not!"

Stronger and stronger in her soul surged the yearning for the dominance
of one man, not this man yonder--a yearning too strong now for her to
resist.

"But Molly, daughter," her mother's voice said to her, "girls has--girls
does. And like he said, it's the promise, it's the agreement they both
make, with witnesses."

"Yes, of course," her father chimed in. "It's the consent in the
contract when you stand before them all."

"I'll not stand before them. I don't consent! There is no agreement!"

Suddenly the girl reached out and caught from her mother the pitiful
little bride's bouquet.

"Look!" she laughed. "Look at these!"

One by one, rapidly, she tore out and flung down the folded gentian
flowers.

"Closed, closed! When the night came, they closed! They couldn't! They
couldn't! I'll not--I can't!"

She had the hand's clasp of mountain blossoms stripped down to a few
small flowers of varied blooms. They heard the coming of the groom, half
running. A silence fell over all the great encampment. The girl's father
made a half step forward, even as her mother san