little girl----" Then he stopped still before the look in Cynthia's eyes.

"I am a--woman, Lans!" it seemed to say.

Presently he heard her speak.

"You told Sandy, dear, that night in the cabin, that you would leave my
soul to me--until--well! You have left it to me, and the time has come!
I have much to learn; but I understand a mighty lot now. It came to me
while I waited, for you to come back from her! My soul would never be
clean again, Lans, if--I forgot--the little child--hers and yours! God
will be very kind to us-all, dear, if we do right. It's mighty
puzzling--but it will come straight. You once loved her?"

"Yes, Cynthia--yes!"

"And you never loved me in _that_ way, dear?"

"You are my wife!" Again the fierceness, "you must and shall come first."

"No, Lans; I am not your wife!"

And with this Cynthia stood up and clasped her hands close.

"Every law in the land says you are!" Treadwell flung his head back and
faced her; "this is a hideous tangle, but above all--through all--you are
my wife!"

"I do not know, I cannot make you feel how I see it--but I am not your
wife! I--I do not want to be! Why, when I saw the light in--in Marian
Spaulding's eyes a little time ago as she ran to you--I seemed to know
all at once--that it was not to you, Lans dear, that I wanted to run in
my trouble, but to----"

"Whom?"

"To Sandy, dear. Sandy, up there in Lost Hollow."

"Cynthia!"

Was she shamming? Was she striving, ignorantly, to make escape easy for
them all? Was she utterly devoid of moral sense? "Moral sense!" At
that Lans Treadwell paused. The glory shining from Cynthia's eyes as she
stood before him, made him shrink and drop his own. The strength and
purity of the high places was upon her. She was lovely and tender, but
primitively firm. The law of the cities she did not know; but the law of
the secret places of the hills was hers. The law of love and Love's God.

"You must take her away, Lans, dear, and be right good to her as you have
been to me, big brother," the sweet voice, the unutterable tenderness and
firmness more and more carried everything before them; "and let the
little child have its chance--poor lil' child! And by and by--oh! a long
time perhaps--when you are all mighty happy and safe, you must tell her
all about it, Lans, and make her love me--a little! Tell her--it was all
I could do. She will understand and be right glad."

"And you--little Cyn?" The wor