oked like strange letters around it.
It fitted her third finger perfectly; but HIS fingers were small, and
he had taken it from his little finger. She should keep it herself. Of
course, if it had been money, she would have given it to Zephas; but the
stranger knew that she wouldn't take money. How firmly he had said that
"I don't!" She felt the warm blood fly to her fresh young face at the
thought of it. He had understood her. She might be living in a
poor cabin, doing all the housework herself, and her husband only a
fisherman, but he had treated her like a lady.

And so the afternoon passed. The outlying fog began to roll in at the
Golden Gate, obliterating the headland and stretching a fleecy bar
across the channel as if shutting out from vulgar eyes the way that he
had gone. Night fell, but Zephas had not yet come. This was unusual,
for he was generally as regular as the afternoon "trades" which blew
him there. There was nothing to detain him in this weather and at this
season. She began to be vaguely uneasy; then a little angry at this new
development of his incompatibility. Then it occurred to her, for the
first time in her wifehood, to think what she would do if he were lost.
Yet, in spite of some pain, terror, and perplexity at the possibility,
her dominant thought was that she would be a free woman to order her
life as she liked.

It was after ten before his lateen sail flapped in the little cove. She
was waiting to receive him on the shore. His good-humored hirsute face
was slightly apologetic in expression, but flushed and disturbed with
some new excitement to which an extra glass or two of spirits had
apparently added intensity. The contrast between his evident
indulgence and the previous abstemiousness of her late guest struck her
unpleasantly. "Well--I declare," she said indignantly, "so THAT'S what
kept you!"

"No," he said quickly; "there's been awful times over in 'Frisco!
Everybody just wild, and the Vigilance Committee in session. Jo
Henderson's killed! Shot by Wynyard Marion in a duel! He'll be lynched,
sure as a gun, if they ketch him."

"But I thought men who fought duels always went free."

"Yes, but this ain't no common duel; they say the whole thing was
planned beforehand by them Southern fire-eaters to get rid o' Henderson
because he's a Northern man and anti-slavery, and that they picked out
Colonel Marion to do it because he was a dead shot. They got him to
insult Henderson, so he was b