ad to be content with the satin softness of her thick
hair.

Suddenly she sprang from him. A sickish odour was filling the room.

"Everything's burned," she gasped; "everything!" She drew the pot from
the stove and ruefully carried it outside. "Nothing left, Jude;" she
laughed nervously. "Nothing but crusts and leavings."

"You go to bed," commanded Jude authoritatively; "that's what you need
more than anything!"

"Yes, yes, that's what I need--sleep. I'm almost dead, I'm so tired."

Jude looked at her hungrily. The sudden happy ending of his torture gave
him an unreal, unsafe feeling.

He wanted to touch her again in the new, thrilling way, but she was
forbidding even in her sweet yielding.

"You go to bed," he said vaguely; "I'll go down to the Black Cat, and
see that your father gets home all right."

Joyce stepped backward to the chamber door beyond.

"Thank you," she murmured; "I certainly am dead tired."

CHAPTER II

There was only a path leading from the highway to John Gaston's shack. A
path wide enough for a single traveller, and the dark pointed pines
guarded it on either side until within ten feet of the house. The house
itself sat cosily in the clearing. It was a log house built by amateur
hands, but roughly artistic without, and mannishly comfortable within.

The broad door opened into the long living room, where a deep fireplace
(happily the chimney had drawn well from the first, or the builder would
have been sore perplexed) gave a look of hospitality to the otherwise
severe furnishings. The fireplace and mantel-shelf were Gaston's pride
and delight. Upon them he had worked his fanciful designs, and the
result was most satisfactory. There was a low, broad couch near the
hearth piled with pine cushions covered with odds and ends of material
that had come into a man's possession from limited sources. A table,
home-made, and some Hillcrest chairs completed the furnishings, except
for the china and cooking utensils that ornamented shelves and hooks
around the room.

An inner door opened into Gaston's bedchamber and sanctum. No one but
himself ever entered there.

There was a broad desk below the one wide window of that room and a
revolving chair before it. A boxed-in affair, filled with fragrant pine
boughs, answered for a bed. This was covered with white sheets and a
pair of fine, handsome, red blankets. An iron-bound chest stood by the
bed with a padlock strong enough to guard a kin