red warmth of the fire, the sickening
smell of drying wool, the loosening of the bands of McAlpin's arms.

"You--you who boast that when you hunt, out of season, you shoot
one shot in the air in order to give a poor wild thing a chance of
escape--you bring me here with a lie; close every hope to me,
and--call that--victory! You--you--fiend! What do you mean?"

She was standing free at last! She was so weak that she staggered to a
chair, fearing that McAlpin, seeing her need, might again lay hands upon
her.

"I mean--that I've fired my shot!" Her words had caught his fancy. "You
have your chance to--to get away! But where? Where?"

The dark face leered.

"See! I'm going to leave you. Go out into the night. You can try for
your--your life, but in the end you'll come to me. I don't care what they
of Kenmore will say, I'll know you are--what you are, and sympathy will
be with me, gal, when I take you. And you'll know, once you come to me,
proper and asking, I'll do--I'll do the best any man could do--for--I
love you!"

This was flung out desperately, defiantly.

"Yes, I love you as--Jerry-Jo McAlpin knows how to love. It's his way.
Remember that!"

Not a word rose to Priscilla's lips. She saw McAlpin turn and stride to
the door; she heard him turn the key and--she was alone! But a strange
thing happened just at that moment, a thing that did more to unnerve the
girl than anything that had gone before. As the heavy oak door slammed
after the retreating figure, the jar caused the tall clock, back among
the shadows of the far side of the room, to strike! One, two, three!
Then followed a whirring that faded into deathly silence. It was like the
voice of one, believed to be dead, speaking!

Frightened, but thoroughly roused to her only hope, Priscilla staggered
to the door, clutched the key in cold, trembling fingers, and turned it
in the lock. Then, sinking upon her knees, she crept back to the fire,
keeping close to the wall. If an eye were pressed to a knothole in the
shutter it could not follow her.

CHAPTER X

Priscilla kept the fire alive. She laid the sticks and logs on
cautiously; she turned wide eyes now and again on the tall clock whose
white face gleamed pallidly among the shadows like a dead thing that had
used its last breath to speak a message. If the clock struck again
Priscilla felt that she might go mad.

It was after midnight when Nature laid a commanding and relentless touch
upon the gir