Mary watched Nance, with a quick glance at Jim. Again he had forgotten that he had a wife. She had studied this strange absorption with increasing uneasiness. During the long, beautiful drive of the afternoon beside laughing waters, through scenes of unparalleled splendor, through valleys of entrancing peace, the still, sapphire skies bending above with clear, Southern Christmas benediction, he had not once pressed her hand, he had not once bent to kiss her.

Each time the thought had come, she fought back the tears. She had made excuses for him. He was absorbed in the memories of his miserable childhood in New York, perhaps. The approaching meeting with his relatives had awakened the old hunger for a mother\'s love that had been denied him. The scenes through which they were passing had perhaps stirred the currents of his subconscious being.

And yet why should such memories estrange his spirit from hers? The effect should be the opposite. In the remembrance of his loneliness and suffering, he should instinctively turn to her. The love with which she had unfolded his life should redeem the past.

He was standing now with his heavy chin silhouetted against the flickering light of the candle on the table. His hand closed suddenly on the handle of the bag with the swift clutch of an eagle\'s claw. She started at the ugly picture it made in the dim rays of the candle.

What were the thoughts seething behind the mask of his face? She watched him, spellbound by his complete surrender to the mood that had dominated him from the moment he had touched the deep forests of the Black Mountain range. A grim elation ruled even his silences. The man standing there rigid, his face a smiling, twitching mask, was a stranger. This man she had never known, or loved. And yet they were bound for life in the tenderest and strongest ties that can hold the human soul and body.

She tossed her head and threw off the ugly thought. It was morbid nonsense! She was just hungry for a kiss, and in his new environment he had forgotten himself as many thoughtless men had forgotten before and would forget again.

“Jim!” she whispered tenderly.

He made no answer. His thick lips were drawn in deep, twisted lines on one side, as if he had suddenly reached a decision from which there could be no appeal.

She raised her voice slightly.

“Jim?”

Not a muscle of his body moved. The drawn lines of the mouth merely relaxed. His answer was scarcely audible.

“Yep——”

“She\'s gone!”

“Yep——”

She moved toward him wistfully.

“Aren\'t you forgetting something?”

His square jaw still held its rigid position silhouetted in sharp profile against the candle\'s light. He answered slowly and mechanically.

“What?”

His indifference was more than the sore heart could bear. The pent-up tears of the afternoon dashed in flood against the barriers of her will.

“You—haven\'t—kissed—me—today,” she stammered, struggling with each word to save a break.

Still he stood immovable. This time his answer was tinged with the slightest suggestion of amusement.

“No?”

She staggered against the table beside the door and gripped its edge desperately.

“Oh—” she gasped. “Don\'t you love me any more?”

With his sullen head still holding its position of indifference, his absorption in the idea which dominated his mind still unbroken, he threw out one hand in a gesture of irritation.

“Cut it, Kid! Cut it!”

His tones were not only indifferent; they were contemptuously indifferent.

With a sob, she sank into the chair and buried her face in her arms.

“You\'re tired! I see it now; you\'ve tired of me. Oh—it\'s not possible—it\'s not possible!”

The torrent came at last in a flood of utter abandonment.

Jim turned, looked at her and threw up his hands in temporary surrender.

“Oh, for God\'s sake!” he muttered, crossing deliberately to her side. He stood and let her sob.

With a quick change of mood, he drew her to her feet, swept her swaying form into his arms, crushed her and covered her lips with kisses.

“How\'s that?”

She smiled through her tears.

“I feel better——”

Jim laughed.

“For better or worse—`until Death do us part\'—that\'s what you said, Kid, and you meant it, too, didn\'t you?”

He seized both of her arms, held them firmly and gazed into her eyes with steady, stern inquiry.

She looked up with uneasy surprise.

“Of course—I meant it,” she answered slowly.

He held her arms gripped close and said:

“Well—we\'ll see!”

His hands relaxed, and he turned away, rubbing his square chin thoughtfully.

She watched him in growing amazement. What could be the mystery back of this new twist of his elusive mind?

He laid his hand on the black bag again, smiled, and turned and faced her with expanding good humor.

“Great scheme, this marryin\', Kid! And you believe in it exactly as I do, don\'t you?”

“How do you mean?” she faltered.

“That it binds and holds both our lives as only Almighty God can bind and hold?”

“Yes—nothing else IS marriage.”

“That\'s what I say, too!”

He placed his hands on her shoulders.

“Great scheme!” he repeated. “I get a pretty girl to work for me for nothing for the balance of my life.” He paused and lifted the slender forefinger of his right hand. “And you pledged your pious soul—I memorized the words, every one of them: `I, Mary, take thee, James, to my wedded husband—TO HAVE AND TO HOLD from this day forward, FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish AND OBEY, TIL DEATH DO US PART, ACCORDING TO GOD\'S HOLY ORDINANCE; AND THEREUNTO I GIVE THEE MY TROTH——\'”

He paused, lifted his head and smiled grimly: “That\'s some promise, believe me, Kiddo! `AND OBEY\'—you meant it all, didn\'t you?”

She would have hedged lightly over that ugly old word which still survived in the ceremony Craddock had used, but for the sinister suggestion in his voice back of the playful banter. He had asked it half in jest, half in earnest. She had caught by the subtle sixth sense the tragic idea in that one word that he was going to hold her to it. The thought was too absurd!

“OBEY—you meant it, didn\'t you?” he repeated grimly.

A smile played about the corners of her mouth as she answered dreamily:

“Yes—I—I—PROMISED!”

“That\'s why I set my head on you from the first—you\'re good and sweet—you\'re the real thing.”

Again she caught the si............