o young women and the motherly benediction of the elder,
Falkner walked to the window, and remained silent, looking into the
darkness. Suddenly he turned bitterly to his companion.

"This is just h-ll, George."

George Lee, with a smile on his boyish face, lazily moved his head.

"I don't know! If it wasn't for the old woman, who is the one solid
chunk of absolute goodness here, expecting nothing, wanting nothing,
it would be good fun enough! These two women, cooped up in this house,
wanted excitement. They've got it! That man Hale wanted to show off by
going for us; he's had his chance, and will have it again before I've
done with him. That d--d fool of a messenger wanted to go out of his way
to exchange shots with me; I reckon he's the most satisfied of the lot!
I don't know why YOU should growl. You did your level best to get away
from here, and the result is, that little Puritan is ready to worship
you."

"Yes--but this playing it on them--George--this--"

"Who's playing it? Not you; I see you've given away our names already."

"I couldn't lie, and they know nothing by that."

"Do you think they would be happier by knowing it? Do you think that
soft little creature would be as happy as she was to-night if she knew
that her husband had been indirectly the means of laying me by the heels
here? Where is the swindle? This hole in my leg? If you had been five
minutes under that girl's d--d sympathetic fingers you'd have thought it
was genuine. Is it in our trying to get away? Do you call that ten-feet
drift in the pass a swindle? Is it in the chance of Hale getting back
while we're here? That's real enough, isn't it? I say, Ned, did you ever
give your unfettered intellect to the contemplation of THAT?"

Falkner did not reply. There was an interval of silence, but he could
see from the movement of George's shoulders that he was shaking with
suppressed laughter.

"Fancy Mrs. Hale archly introducing her husband! My offering him a
chair, but being all the time obliged to cover him with a derringer
under the bedclothes. Your rushing in from your peaceful pastoral
pursuits in the barn, with a pitchfork in one hand and the girl in the
other, and dear old mammy sympathizing all round and trying to make
everything comfortable."

"I should not be alive to see it, George," said Falkner gloomily.

"You'd manage to pitchfork me and those two women on Hale's horse and
ride away; that's what you'd do, or I don't know you! L