anything to the white-faced, tragic-eyed Cleve. Joan gazed
at him with utter amazement. She remembered a heavily built, florid Jim
Cleve, an overgrown boy with a good-natured, lazy smile on his full
face and sleepy eyes. She all but failed to recognize him in the man who
stood there now, lithe and powerful, with muscles bulging in his coarse,
white shirt. Joan's gaze swept over him, up and down, shivering at the
two heavy guns he packed, till it was transfixed on his face. The old,
or the other, Jim Cleve had been homely, with too much flesh on his face
to show force or fire. This man seemed beautiful. But it was a beauty of
tragedy. He was as white as Kells, but smoothly, purely white,
without shadow or sunburn. His lips seemed to have set with a bitter,
indifferent laugh. His eyes looked straight out, piercing, intent,
haunted, and as dark as night. Great blue circles lay under them,
lending still further depth and mystery. It was a sad, reckless face
that wrung Joan's very heartstrings. She had come too late to save his
happiness, but she prayed that it was not too late to save his honor and
his soul.

While she gazed there had been further exchange of speech between Kells
and Cleve, and she had heard, though not distinguished, what was said.
Kells was unmistakably friendly, as were the other men within range of
Joan's sight. Cleve was surrounded; there were jesting and laughter;
and then he was led to the long table where several men were already
gambling.

Joan dropped the curtain, and in the darkness of her cabin she saw that
white, haunting face, and when she covered her eyes she still saw it.
The pain, the reckless violence, the hopeless indifference, the wreck
and ruin in that face had been her doing. Why? How had Jim Cleve wronged
her? He had loved her at her displeasure and had kissed her against her
will. She had furiously upbraided him, and when he had finally turned
upon her, threatening to prove he was no coward, she had scorned him
with a girl's merciless injustice. All her strength and resolve left
her, momentarily, after seeing Jim there. Like a woman, she weakened.
She lay on the bed and writhed. Doubt, hopelessness, despair, again
seized upon her, and some strange, yearning maddening emotion. What had
she sacrificed? His happiness and her own--and both their lives!

The clamor in the other cabin grew so boisterous that suddenly when it
stilled Joan was brought sharply to the significance of it. Aga