uty, hollow in its pretense and
dreary in its desolation. She only saw in it a chief altar for the
glorification of this girl who had absorbed even the pure worship of
her companion, and converted and degraded his sublime paganism to her
petty creed. With a woman's withering contempt for her own art
displayed in another woman, she thought how she herself could have
touched him with the peace that the majesty of their woodland
aisles--so unlike this pillared sham--had taught her own passionate
heart, had she but dared. Mingling with this imperfect theology, she
felt she could have proved to him also that a brunette and a woman of
her experience was better than an immature blonde. She began to loathe
herself for coming hither, and dreaded to meet his face. Here a sudden
thought struck her. What if he had not come here? What if she had been
mistaken? What if her rash interpretation of his absence from the wood
that night was simple madness? What if he should return--if he had
already returned? She rose to her feet, whitening yet joyful with the
thought. She would return at once; what was the girl to her now? Yet
there was time to satisfy herself if he were at _her_ house. She had
been told where it was; she could find it in the dark; an open door or
window would betray some sign or sound of the occupants. She rose,
replaced her hat over her eyes, knotted her flaunting scarf around her
throat, groped her way to the door, and glided into the outer darkness.

CHAPTER VII.

It was quite dark when Mr. Jack Brace stopped before Father Wynn's open
door. The windows were also invitingly open to the wayfarer, as were
the pastoral counsels of Father Wynn, delivered to some favored guest
within, in a tone of voice loud enough for a pulpit. Jack Brace paused.
The visitor was the convalescent sheriff, Jim Dunn, who had publicly
commemorated his recovery by making his first call upon the father of
his inamorata. The Reverend Mr. Wynn had been expatiating upon the
unremitting heat as a possible precursor of forest fires, and
exhibiting some catholic knowledge of the designs of a Deity in that
regard, and what should be the policy of the Legislature, when Mr.
Brace concluded to enter. Mr. Wynn and the wounded man, who occupied an
arm-chair by the window, were the only occupants of the room. But in
spite of the former's ostentatious greeting, Brace could see that his
visit was inopportune and unwelcome. The sheriff nodded a quick,
impa