sufficed for Charlie, and his eyes came back to the
woman's smiling face. Her good looks were undoubted, but to him they
were of an almost celestial order. There was no creature in the whole
wide world to compare with her.

His eyes devoured every detail of her expression, of her personality,
with the hungry greed of a soul-starved man. It was almost an
impossibility for him to seize upon and hold the thoughts that so
swiftly poured through his brain. So the moments passed and Kate found
her patience ebbing.

"Well?" she demanded, her smile slowly fading.

The man breathed a sigh, and swallowed as with a dry throat. The spell
of her charm had been broken.

"I had to come," he cried, with a nervous rush. "I had to find you. I
had to speak to you--to tell you."

The woman's eyes, so steadily fixed upon his face, were wearing an
almost hard look.

"Was it necessary to stimulate your nerve to come, and--speak to me?
Charlie, Charlie," Kate went on more gently, her fine eyes softening,
"when is this all to cease? Why must you drink? It seems so hopeless.
Oh, man, where is your backbone, your grit. You tell me you long to be
free of your curse, yet you plunge headlong the moment you are
disturbed."

Her moment of passionate remonstrance passed and a subtle coolness
superseded it, as the scarlet flushed into the man's pale cheeks.

"Tell it me all," she went on, "tell me what it is you had to see me
about. Remember, to-morrow is Sunday, and this place must be put in
order for meeting. As it is, I am late. I was kept."

The flush of shame died out of the man's face, and his eyes became
questioning. But his manner was almost humble.

"I know," he said. "I knew I had no right to disturb you--now. I knew
you would resent it. But I had to see you--while I had the chance.
To-morrow it might be too late."

"Too late?"

The woman's question came with a sharp, rising inflection.

"Oh, Kate, Kate, won't you understand what has brought me? Can't you
understand all that I feel now that the shadow of the law is so
threatening here in this valley? All the time I'm thinking of you;
thinking of all you mean in my life; thinking of the love which would
make it a happiness to lay down my life for you, the love which to me
is the whole, whole world."

He ceased speaking with a curious abruptness. It was as though there
were much more to be said, but he feared to give it expression.

Kate seized upon his pause to remonstrate.