le sophistry that soon had the poor wretch enmeshed beyond
possibility of escape. He assured himself that the problem was reduced
to a mere question of justice to a woman. A sacrifice must be made
between one whom he loved better than anything in the world, and one for
whom he cared not at all. That these two persons chanced to be brother
and sister was an unfortunate accident, but could not be held a
circumstance strong enough to modify his determination. He had, indeed,
solemnly sworn to Will to keep his secret, but what mattered that before
this more crushing, urgent duty to Chris? His manhood cried out to him
to protect her. Nothing else signified in the least; the future--the
best that he could hope for--might be ashy and hopeless now; but it was
with the immediate present and his duty that he found himself concerned.
There remained but one grim way; and, through such overwhelming,
shattering storm and stress as falls to the lot of few, he finally took
it. To marry at any cost and starve afterwards if necessary, had been
the more simple plan; and that course of action must first have occurred
to any other man but this; to him, however, it did not occur. The
crying, shrieking need for money was the thing that stunned him and
petrified him. Shattered and tossed to the brink of aberration,
stretched at frightful mental tension for a fortnight, he finally
succumbed, and told himself that his defeat was victory.

He wrote to John Grimbal, explained that he desired to see him on the
morrow, and the master of the Red House, familiar with recent affairs,
rightly guessed that Hicks had changed his mind. Excited beyond measure,
the victor fixed a place for their conversation, and it was a strange
one.

"Meet me at Oke Tor," he wrote. "By an accident I shall be in the Taw
Marshes to-morrow, and will ride to you some time in the
afternoon.--J.G."

Thus, upon a day when Will Blanchard called at Mrs. Hicks's cottage,
Clement had already started for his remote destination on the Moor. With
some unconscious patronage Will saluted Mrs. Hicks and called for
Clement. Then he slapped down a flat envelope under the widow's eyes.

"Us have thought a lot about this trouble, mother, an' Phoebe's hit on
as braave a notion as need be. You see, Clem's my close friend again
now, an' Chris be my sister; so what's more fittin' than that I should
set up the young people? An' so I shall, an' here's a matter of Bank of
England notes as will re