ed, and she, pale, fair, beautiful, with her hair
about her like folds of sable fur, she put out her round white arms to
the great half-grizzly, half-baby, by her side. She was still a long
time then; then she called him pretty names, and she cried as if her
heart would break.

"Sandy, I told you it was not best, it was not right, it would not do,
that you would be sorry some day, and that you would blame and upbraid
me, and that the men would laugh at you and at me. But you would not be
put off. Do you not remember how I shut myself up and kept away from
you, and would not see you, and how you kept watch, and sent round, and
would see me whether or no?"

He now remembered. And what then? Had he repented? On the contrary, he
had never loved her half so truly as now. His heart was too full to dare
to speak.

"Do you not remember that when I told you all this would happen, that
you said it could not happen? That, happen what would, no man should
mock or laugh or reprove, and live? Well, now, Sandy dear, it will
happen. I have done you wrong. I now want to tell you to take back your
promise. That is best."

The man rose up. The place where he had hid his face was wet as rain.

"Sandy, Sandy, can we cross the mountains now?"

The little lady lay trembling in her bed with her hands covering her
face.

Then she put down her hands and looked up into the face of her husband.

"Sandy, leave me!"

She sprang up in bed as she said this, as if inspired with a new
thought.

"There! take that gold, this gold; all of it!" She left her bed with a
bound and heaped the gold together and turned to Sandy.

"Take it, I tell you, and go. That is best; that is right. I want you
to go--go now! Go! Will you go? Will you not go when I command you to
go?"

"Not when you're sick, my pretty; get well, and then I will go; go, and
stay till you tell me I may come back."

"Will you not go?"

"Not while you're sick, my pretty."

"Then I will go."

She caught a shawl from the wall. Her face was aflame. She sprang to the
door, through the door, and out to the fence, in a moment. Sandy's arms
were about her now, and he led her back and laid her in her bed.

She lay there trembling again, and Sandy bent above her.

"Sandy, when all the world turns against me and laughs at me, what will
you do?"

He did not understand; he could not answer.

"When men laugh at me when I pass, what can you say, and what will you
do?"

"What will