f, but he held her
in a viselike grip, while he peered closely at a blemish well down upon
her back. Then he let her slip from his grasp, and, seized with terror,
she staggered away from him. He was leaning heavily with both hands
upon the table, his face working, his head drawn down between his
shoulders, his thin lips grinning, his whole manner so terrifying that
she shrank back till she brought up against the bark walls. She turned
and made for the door, whereupon he straightened up and said, in a
queer, commanding voice:

"Wait--don't go! I--I--you--" He licked his lips as if they were dust
dry, passed an uncertain hand across his beaded brow, and, raising the
water-pail beside the door to his mouth, drank heavily in great, noisy
gulps.

"Let me out of here!" the girl demanded, imperiously.

"Don't be scared," he said, more quietly now. "You must excuse me.
You--you gave me an awful fright. Yes--that was it. Don't worry. I
didn't mean any harm."

"You hurt my shoulder," she said, almost ready to cry. "And you tore my
dress," she added, angrily--"my fine dress. Are you crazy?"

"You see, it's like this, that name of Merridy and that ring--well, the
whole thing was so startling, I--I went off my head. It came sudden,
and I thought--I thought--it don't matter what I thought, but I'm
sorry. I'll apologize--and I'll get you a new dress, a whole lot of
dresses, if you like." This seemed to amuse him, and he began to laugh
silently.

His first impulse had been to tell her everything, but his amazement
had rendered him speechless, and now he was thankful for it. Following
his discovery of her identity, he had been stricken dumb, staring at
her like one demented; then, as he was about to explain, his mind
suddenly grasped the significance of this revelation and the advantage
it gave him over his enemies; a plan began to unfold, vague at first,
its details not worked out, but a plan whereby he could by keeping
silent use this knowledge to serve his vengeful ends. In an instant his
vision cleared and his brain became active and alert, like that of a
man brought suddenly under the stimulus of strong liquor. Care must be
exercised--she must not learn too much--for if she suspected the truth
she would go to her soldier lover at once, and no power on earth could
hold her back. That would block the vengeance that he saw shaping in
the dank recesses of his distorted brain.

First, and above all, he must get the girl away fr