shed your errand yet. What's ailing you? No one could help the
storm, and we'd be swamped in the bay if we was there now."

Priscilla got up and walked slowly toward the door, but without any
apparent reason Jerry-Jo arose also, and, still chewing his bread and
meat, backed away from the table, keeping himself between the girl and
whatever her object was. Noticing this, a real terror seized upon
Priscilla and she darted in the opposite direction, reached the hearth,
and was bending toward a heavy poker which lay there, before she herself
could have explained her motive. Jerry-Jo was alert. Tossing his food
upon the table as he strode forward, he gripped her wrist.

"None of that!" he muttered. "What ails you, Priscilla?" They faced each
other at close range.

"I--I am afraid of you!"

At this McAlpin threw back his head and roared with laughter, releasing
her at the same time. With freedom Priscilla gained a bit of courage and
a keen sense of the necessity of calmness. She did not move away from
Jerry-Jo, but fixing him with her wide eyes she asked:

"Are--are the--family here--here in Kenmore?" Suspicion and anger shook
the voice. The slow, tense words brought things down to fact.

"No! God knows where they are! I don't know or care."

Brought face to face with great danger, mental or physical, the majority
of people rise to the call. Priscilla knew now that she was in grave
peril--peril of a deeper kind than even her tormentor could realize.
Every nerve and emotion came to her defence. She would hold this creature
at bay as hunters hold the wild things of the woods when gun or club
fail. Then, after that, she would have to deal with what must inevitably
confront her at home. She seemed to be standing alone amid cruel and
unfamiliar foes, but she was calm!

"You lied, then? What for?"

"What do you think?"

"You believe, by shutting me away from everything, every one, you can win
what otherwise you could not get?" It all seemed cruelly plain, now. She
felt she had always known it.

"Something like that, yes. You'll come to me fast enough, after to-night.
Once you come I'll--I'll do the fair and square thing by you, Priscilla."

The half-pleading caught the girl's thought.

"You mean, by this device you will make me marry you? You'll blacken
my name, bar my father's house to me, and then you will be generous
and--marry me?"

[Illustration: "'You mean, by this device you will make me marry you?
You'll bl