murder
was in Sandy's heart he hesitated to commit it. He glanced about him
with a movement of impotent rage. Never before had he been balked in
his will by man, nor had he ever met the woman who had dared to cross
him. And here he was, held up in his own particular saw-log road by
one of the despised sex! He remembered, in choking wrath, that he was
a pillar of the Glenoro church, that before him was the schoolmistress,
and behind the doctor and old Hughie Cameron's niece, and he dared not
give adequate expression to the rage with which he was being consumed.

In a voice inarticulate with anger he opened a parley. He declared
that he would have the law, that he would publish her high-handed act
from one end of the county of Simcoe to the other, that he would get
himself elected for trustee and drive her out of the section. He
blustered, he threatened, he scolded, he argued. And through it all
the obstacle sat on her basket, in the middle of the highway, not
deigning him even a glance. But as the maddened man foamed on, there
arose once to the surface the lurking twinkle in the Duke's gray eyes.
For there was no doubt Sandy was weakening. He had even stooped to
reason with her now.

"The snow's no more nor a half fut deep!" he was bellowing.

The Duke caught the first symptom of yielding, but was too wise to make
answer.

"Yon's the doctor back there," he cried, with a great show of righteous
concern, "he'll mebby be in a hurry."

There was no sign of impatience from the two, choking down their
laughter, in the cutter behind; and though she could not see them, well
the Duke knew they were enjoying themselves. Nevertheless, she
condescended to answer.

"You'd better not keep him waiting, then," she advised.

The man darted one more glance around, the glance of an imprisoned lion
which suddenly realizes its position. Slowly, his brows erect, his
face dark, he descended from the sleigh and walked around to her side.
He stood for a moment regarding her, with a dawning expression of
something like respect struggling with the gleam of his fierce eyes.

"If Ah tramp ye a path 'round the sleigh will ye walk in it?" he asked,
his voice tremulous with wrath.

The Duke weighed the proposition with great deliberation. She would
have died there under the horses' feet rather than show the slightest
interest in it. "Well," she admitted indifferently, "I can't say. If
I don't get my skirts snowy, I might. You