cted,
Miss Clinton, if we have to kill Manuel Crust and his fol-lowers. It
is true he has been preaching that sort of gospel among the vicious
and ignorant Portugees and half-casts, but it's all talk. Don't pay any
attention to it."

"We can't help being worried. Suppose his following is much larger than
you think. They are a rough, lawless crowd, and--"

"Ninety-five per cent, of the men here are decent. That's the only
comfort I can give you." He smiled his whimsical smile. "I think you
will find that you will be courted in the regular, old-fashioned way,
and proposed to with as much solemnity and uncertainty as if you were
back at home, and it will be left for you to choose your own husband. We
have two ministers of the gospel here, you know. I predict some rather
violent courtships, and perhaps a few ill-advised marriages, but you may
rest assured that no man is going to claim you until you claim him."

He was looking straight into her eyes. She felt the blood mounting to
her cheek,--and was conscious of a strange, delicious sensation as of
peril stealing over her.

"You are most reassuring," she managed to say, scarcely above a whisper,
and then paused expectant.

Afterwards she was shamed by the exquisite pain of anticipation that
had coursed through her in that moment of waiting. She never could quite
account for the temporary weakness that assailed her and left her mute
and helpless under the spell of his eyes. She only knew that she waited
expectant,--for something that never came! What she might have said in
response, what she might have done if he had uttered the words she was
prepared to hear, she did not care to contemplate, even in the privacy
of her own thoughts. She only knew that she was ashamed of the thrill
that went over her and strangely bitter toward him for being the cause
of it. She would not admit to herself that disappointment had anything
to do with it,--for she found herself arguing, nothing could have been
more distressing than to rebuff him when he seemed so eager to help her
in her plans for Easter Sunday.

The fact remains, however, that Percival held his tongue, and she never
quite understood why he did.

The time and the place of this encounter invited confession. There was
a full moon in the heavens, the night was still, the air crisp with the
tang of October in the north,--and they were alone in the shadow of the
"tabernacle." Lights gleamed in the little windows that stretche