eminently proper.
Lee."

"Yes."

"There's something more. Gretzinger's not only finding amusement in
her company, he's in love with her. After the women he's been
accustomed to in New York, the rouged and jaded type he naturally
would know, her freshness and spirits appeal to him. But you know what
sort of man he is--cynical, unscrupulous, without principles."

A long time passed before Bryant made a response. He stood knitting
his brows, as if preoccupied. Imogene wondered if he had been
following her at the last.

"I'll speak to him about his principles in connection with Ruth," he
said. The utterance was amazingly dispassionate. Then quite
unexpectedly he remarked, "I've never yet had to kill a man, never as
yet."

Imogene shuddered, and she was terrified. It was as if a curtain had
been jerked aside disclosing figures grouped for tragedy.

"It must never come to that," she breathed.

Bryant stirred, then began to look about the room. He grew observant.

"This is bad for you, Imogene," he said, presently. "Impossible! Your
uncle is right. This wretched cabin doesn't keep out cold or wind; you
have to chop wood and carry water, tasks beyond your strength; you're
lonely, you're ill at times--"

"And Ruth?"

"Well?"

"You know her situation. Financial, I mean."

"I less than any one know it. Extraordinary, too, now that I think of
it," he said, reflectively. "What is her situation?" Immediately he
added, "Of course, I guess that she has no great means and she has
said that she lacks training to earn a livelihood. But her family?"

"She lived with an aunt until she came here, Lee."

"So she mentioned."

"They didn't get on well together after Ruth went to stay with her on
her parents' death," Imogene explained. "The woman was narrow-minded
and exacting, especially in matters of amusements and religion. You
know the type." Bryant nodded. "And Ruth was young, exuberant, and, as
I now see, wilful. Their clashes were the cause of her desire to come
West. We had been good friends, but not intimates; and I marvel at
myself now at having gone so rashly into a thing like this, without
inquiring whether our habits, tastes, desires, natures, everything,
fitted us for prolonged companionship. Yes, I marvel." She sat
motionless, staring at the lamp fixedly. "However, I'm in it now up to
my neck. Ruth declares that she will never return to her aunt."

"And she can't earn a living."

"Nor would if she could, I