switched to the
opposite point of view. He goaded us nearly to madness with his
criticisms of our inefficiency, and he mocked repeatedly the groom's
ill-timed cry of Liberty.

"Liberty!" he said, "you never knew, you never will know, what that
is--you miserable little pin-head. Liberty is for great natures.

'Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage.'

But the woman shall know what liberty is. If she had wanted to leave me
there was nothing to stop her. Do you think she'd have followed the
river, leaving a broad trail? Do you think she'd have walked right into
this meadow--unless she hadn't cared? Not she. Did you ask her advice,
you self-sufficiencies? Not you. You were the men-folk, you thought, and
you were to have the ordering of everything. You make me sick, the pair
of you...."

He kept us awake until far into the night with his jibes and his
laughter.

"Well," he said lastly, "good-night, girls. I'm about sick of you, and
in the morning we part company...."

At the break of dawn he waked us from heavy sleep--me with a cuff, the
groom with a kick, the bride with a feline touch upon the hair.

"And now," said he, "be off."

He caught the bride by the shoulder.

"Not _you_," he said.

"I am to stay?" she asked, as if to settle some trivial and unimportant
point.

"Do you ask?" said he; "Was man meant to live alone? This will be enough
home for us." And he turned to the groom. "Get," he said savagely.

"Mr. Farallone," said the bride--she was very white, but calm,
apparently, and collected--"you have had your joke. Let us go now, or
better, come with us. We will forget our former differences, and you
will never regret your future kindnesses."

"Don't you _want_ to stay?" exclaimed Farallone in a tone of
astonishment.

"If I did," said the bride gently, "I could not, and I would not."

"What's to stop you?" asked Farallone.

"My place is with my husband," said the bride, "whom I have sworn to
love, and to honor, and to obey."

"Woman," said Farallone, "do you love him, do you honor him?"

She pondered a moment, then held her head high.

"I do," she said.

"God bless you," cried the groom.

"Rats," said Farallone, and he laughed bitterly. "But you'll get over
it," he went on. "Let's have no more words." He turned to the groom and
to me.

"Will you climb down the cliff or shall I throw you?"

"Let us all go," said the bride, and she caught at his trembling a