w a new
expression--a cold, designing gleam that frightened her.

Five minutes later, when the parson announced his intention to care for
his horse before retiring and stood in the doorway preparatory to going
out, Sheila restrained an impulse to call to him to remain. She succeeded
in quieting her fears, however, by assuring herself that nothing could
happen now, with the parson so near. Thus fortified, she smiled at Dakota
as the parson stepped down and closed the door.

She drew a startled breath in the next instant, though, for without
noticing her smile Dakota stepped to the door and barred it. Turning, he
stood with his back against it, his lips in straight, hard lines, his eyes
steady and gleaming brightly.

He caught Sheila's gaze and held it; she trembled and sat erect.

"It's odd, ain't it?" he said, in the mocking voice that he had used when
using the same words earlier in the evening.

"What is odd?" Hers was the same answer that she had used before, too--she
could think of nothing else to say.

"Odd that he should come along just at this time." He indicated the door
through which the parson had disappeared. "You and me are here, and he
comes. Who sent him?"

"Chance, I suppose," Sheila answered, though she could feel that there was
a subtle undercurrent in his speech, and she felt again the strange unrest
that had affected her several times before.

"You think it was chance," he said, drawling his words. "Well, maybe
that's just as good a name for it as any other. But we don't all see
things the same way, do we? We couldn't, of course, because we've all got
different things to do. We think this is a big world and that we play a
big game. But it's a little world and a little game when Fate takes a hand
in it. I told you a while ago that Fate had a queer way of shuffling us
around. That's a fact. And Fate is running this game." His mocking laugh
had a note of grimness in it, which brought a chill over Sheila. "Just
now, Miss Sheila, Fate is playing with brides and bridegrooms and
marriages and parsons. That's what is so odd. Fate has supplied the parson
and the license; we'll supply the names. Look at the bridegroom, Sheila,"
he directed, tapping his breast with a finger; "this is your wedding
day!"

"What do you mean?" Sheila was on her feet, trembling, her face white with
fear and dread.

"That we're to be married," he said, smiling at her, and she noted with a
qualm that there was no mirth in t