s determination wavered before the woman's coldness. He looked
into her dark eyes desperately. They were cold and hard. They had
never looked at him like that before.

"D'you mean that, Kate?" he demanded desperately. "Do you mean that if
I take that wagon you have--done with me forever? Do you?"

"I meant precisely what I said." Kate suddenly bestirred herself. The
coldness in her eyes turned to anger, a swift, hot anger, to which
the man was unused, and he shrank before it. "If you are sane you
will leave that wagon to me. You _do not_ want it for your haying
to-morrow. Anyway, your haying excuse is far too thin for me. I know
why you want it. If you take it I wash my hands of you entirely. You
must choose now between these things, once and for all. I am in no
trifling mood. You must choose now--at once. And your choice must
stand for all time."

Kate watched the effect of every word she spoke, and she knew, long
before she finished speaking, she was to have her way. It was always
so. This man had no power to refuse her anything. It was only in her
absence, when his weakness overwhelmed him, that her influence lost
power over him.

All the excitement had died out of his eyes. Anger gave way to
despair, decision to weakness and yielding. And through it all a great
despair and hopelessness sounded in his voice.

"Oh, Kate," he cried, "I can't believe this is you--I can't--I can't.
You are cruel--crueller than ever I would have believed. You know why
I want to keep the wagon just now. I implore you not to do this thing.
I will do most anything else you ask me, but--leave that wagon."

Kate shook her head in cold decision.

"My mind is quite made up," she said. "There is nothing more to be
said. You must choose here--and now."

The man hesitated. Just for a moment a gleam of anger flashed into his
eyes, but it died almost at its birth, and he made a gesture of
something like despair.

"You must do as you see fit," he said, yielding. Then, in a moment,
his weakness was further displayed in an impotent obstinacy. "You must
do as you see fit, and I shall do the same. My mind, too, is made up.
I shall carry out the plans I have already made, and if harm
comes--blame yourself."

He turned away abruptly. He refused even to look in her direction
again. He sprang into the saddle with remarkable agility and galloped
off.

* * * * *

Charlie Bryant raced back to his house. For the mome