THREE weeks before Christmas Gaston began to dream of the visit he was to make to Independence to see Sallie Worth. How long it seemed since she had kissed him in the twilight of that Pullman car and the Limited had rolled away bearing her further and further from his life! He would sit now for an hour reading her last letter, looking at her picture on his desk, and dreaming of what she would say when he sat by her side again in her own home.

And then like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky came a tearful letter announcing another storm at home. Her father had again forbidden her to write. She said, at the last, that Gaston’s visit must be postponed indefinitely for the present. He gazed at the letter with a hardened look.

“I will go. I ’ll face General Worth in his own home, and demand his reasons for such treatment. I am a man I am entitled to the respect of a man.” He made this declaration with a quiet force that left no doubt about his doing it.

He wrote Sallie that he could not and would not endure such a fight in the dark with the General, and that he was going to Independence on the day before Christmas as she had planned at first, to have it out with him face to face.

She wrote in reply and begged him under no circumstances to come until conditions were more favourable. He got this letter the day before he was to start.

“I ’ll go and I ’ll see him if I have to fight my way into his house, that’s all there is to it!” he exclaimed.

When he reached Independence, St. Clare met him at the depot, and gave him an eager welcome.

“I’ve been expecting you, you hard-headed fool!” he said impulsively.

“Well, your words are not equal to your handshake. What’s the matter?” asked Gaston.

“You know what’s the matter. Miss Sallie has been to see me this afternoon, and begged me to chain you at my house if you came to town to-day.”

“Well, you ’ll need handcuffs, and help to get them on,” replied Gaston with quiet decision.

“Look here, old boy, you’re not going down to that house to-night with the old man threatening to kill you on sight, and your girl bordering on collapse!”

“I am. I’ve been bordering on collapse for some time myself. I’m getting used to it.”

“You’re a fool.”

“Granted, but I ’ll risk it.”

“But, man, I tell you Miss Sallie will be furious with you if you go after all the messages she has sent you.”

“I ’ll risk her fury too.”

“Gaston, let me beg you not to do it.”

“I’m going, Bob. It isn’t any use for you to waste your breath.”

“You know where my heart is, old chum,” said Bob, yielding reluctantly. “I couldn’t go down to that house to-night under the conditions you are going for the world.”

“Why not? It’s the manly thing to do.”

“It’s a dangerous thing to do. Fathers have killed men under such conditions.”

“Well, I ’ll risk it. I’m going as soon as I can brush up a little.”

Bob walked with him to the outskirts of the city, begging in vain that he should turn back, but he never slacked his pace.

When he turned to go home, Bob pressed his hand and said “Good luck. And may your shadow never grow less.”

Gaston walked rapidly on toward Oakwood. As he passed through the shadows of the forest near the gate, a flood of tender memories rushed over him. He was back again by her side on that morning he met her, with the first flush of love thrilling his life. He could see her looking earnestly at him as though trying to solve a riddle. He could hear her laughter full of joy and happiness. As he turned into the gateway the house flashed on him its gleaming windows from the hill top. He felt his heart sink with bitterness as he realised the contrast of his last entrance into that house, its welcomed guest, and his present unbidden intrusion. Once those lights had gleamed only a message of peace and love. Now they seemed signals of war some enemy had set on the hill to warn of his approach.

He paused a moment and wiped the perspiration from his brow. It was Christmas eve, but the air was balmy and spring-like and his rapid walk had tired him. He had eaten nothing all day, had slept only a few hours the night before, and the nerve strain had been more than he knew.

He looked up at the great white pillars softly shining in the starlight, and a sickening fear of a possible tragedy behind those doors crept over him.

“My God!” he exclaimed, “I had rather charge a breastworks in the face of flashing guns than to go into that house to-night and meet one man!”

He recognised the breach of the finer amenities of life involved in forcing his way into a home under such conditions, and it humiliated him for a moment.

“We will not stickle for forms now,” he said to himself firmly. “This is war. I am to uncover the batteries of my enemy. I have hesitated long enough. I will not fight in the dark another day.”

As he stepped briskly up to the door, he started at a sudden thought. What if the General had ordered the servants to slam the door in his face! The possibility of such an unforeseen insult made the cold sweat break out over his face as he rang the bell. No matter, he was in for it now, he would face hell if need be!

He waited but an instant, and heard the heavy tread of a man approach the door. Instinctively he knew that the General himself was on guard, and would open the door. Evidently he had expected him.

The door opened about two feet and the General glared at him livid with rage. He held one hand on the door and the other on its facing, and his towering figure filled the space.

“Good evening, General!” said Gaston with embarrassment.

“What do you want, sir?” he growled.

“I wish to see you for a few minutes.”

“Well, I don’t want to see you.”

“Whether you wish to or not, you must do it sooner of later,” answered Gaston with dignity.

“Indeed! Your insolence is sublime, I must say!”

“The sooner you and I have a plain talk the better for both of us. It can’t be put off any longer,” Gaston continued with self control. He was looking the General straight in the eyes now, with head and broad shoulders erect and his square-cut jaws were snapping his words with a clean emphasis that was not lost on the older master of men before him.

“Call at my office in the morning at ten o’clock.” he said, at length.

“I will not do it. I am going home on the nine o’clock train. To-morrow is Christmas day. The issue between us is of life import to me, and it may be of equal importance to you. I will not put it off another hour!”

The General glared at him. His hands began to tremble, and raising his voice, he thundered, “I am not accustomed to take orders from young upstarts. How dare you attempt to force yourself into my house when you were told again and again not to attempt it, sir?”

“Your former welcome to me on three occasions when the object of my visits was as well known to you as to me, gives me, at least, the vested rights of a final interview. I demand it,” retorted Gaston curtly.

“And I refuse it!” Still there was a note of indecision in his voice which Gaston was quick to catch.

“General,” he protested, “you are a soldier and a gentleman. You never fought an enemy with uncivilised warfare. Yet you have allowed some one under your protection to stab me in the dark for the past year. I am entitled to know why I fight and against whom. I ask your sense of fairness as a soldier if I am not right?”

The General hesitated, and finally said, as he opened the door, “Walk into the parlour.”

When they were seated, Gaston plunged immediately into the question he had at heart.

“Now, General, I wish to ask you plainly why you have treated me as you have since I asked you for your daughter’s hand?”

“The less said about it, the better. I have good and sufficient reasons, and that settles it.”

“But I have the right to know them.”

“What right?”

“The ............