The day following that night of Brian Kent's uneasy wakefulness was a hard day for the man and the woman in the little log house by the river.

For Brian, the morning dawned with a sense of impending disaster. He left his room while the sky was still gray behind the eastern mountains, and the mist that veiled the brightness of the hills seemed to hide in its ghostly depths legions of shadowy spirits that from his past had assembled to haunt him. The sombre aisles and caverns of the dimly lighted forest were peopled with shadowy memories of that life which he had hoped would never again for him awake. And the river swept through its gray world to the crashing turmoil at Elbow Rock like a thing doomed to seek forever in its own irresistible might the destruction of its ever-living self.

As one moving in a world of dreams, he went about his morning's work. "Old Prince" whinnied his usual greeting, but received no answer. "Bess" met him at the barnyard gate, but he did not speak. The sun leaped above the mountain-tops, and the world was filled with the beauty of its golden glory. From tree and bush and swaying weed, from forest and pasture, and garden and willow-fringed river-bank, the birds voiced their happy greetings to the new day. But the man neither saw nor heard.

When he went to the house with his full milk-pail, and Betty Jo met him at the kitchen-door with her cheery "Good-morning!" he tried resolutely to free himself from the mood which possessed him, but only partially succeeded. Several times, as the two faced each other across the breakfast table, Brian saw the gray eyes filled with questioning anxiety, as though Betty Jo, also, felt the presence of some forbidding spectre at the meal.

After several vain attempts to find something they could talk about, Betty Jo boldly acknowledged the situation by saying: "What in the world is the matter with us, this morning, Mr. Burns? I am possessed with the feeling that there is some one or something behind me. I want to look over my shoulder every minute."

At her words, Brian involuntarily turned his head for a quick backward glance.

"There!" cried Betty Jo, with a nervous laugh, not at all like her normal, well-poised self. "You feel it, too!"

Brian forced a laugh in return: "It is the weather, I guess." He tried to speak with casual ease. "The atmosphere is full of electricity this morning. We'll have a thunder-storm before night, probably."

"And was it the electricity in the air that kept you tramping up and down your room last night until almost morning?" she demanded abruptly, with her characteristic opposition to any evasion of the question at issue.

Brian retorted with a smile: "And how do you know that I tramped up and down my room last night?"

The color in Betty Jo's cheeks deepened as she answered, "I did not sleep very well either."

"But, I surely did not make noise enough for you to hear in your room?" persisted Brian.

The color deepened still more in Betty Jo's checks, as she answered honestly: "I was not in my room when I heard you." She paused, and when he only looked at her expectantly, but did not speak, continued, in a hesitating manner quite unlike her matter-of-fact self: "When I could not sleep, and felt so as though there were somebody or something in the house that had no business here, I became afraid, and opened my door so I would not feel so much alone; and then I saw the light under the door of your room, and,--" she hesitated, but finished with a little air of defiance,--"and I went and listened outside your door to see if you were up."

"Yes?" said Brian Kent, gently.

"And when I heard you walking up and down, I wanted to call to you; but I thought I better not. It made me feel better, though, just to know that you were there; and so, pretty soon, I went back to my room again."

"And then?" said Brian.

"And then," confessed Betty Jo, "whatever it was that was keeping me awake came back, and went on keeping me awake until I was simply forced to go to you for help again."

Poor Betty Jo! She knew very well that she ought not to be saying those things to the man who, while he listened, could not hide the love that shone in his eyes.

And Brian Kent, as he thought of this woman, whom he loved with all the strength of his best self, creeping to the door of his room for comfort in the lonely night, scarcely dared trust himself to speak. At last, when their silence was becoming unbearable, he said, gently: "You poor child! Why didn't you call to me?"

And Betty Jo, hearing in his voice that which told her how near he was to the surrender that would bring disaster to them both, was aroused to the defense. The gray eyes never wavered as she answered, bravely: "I was afraid of that, too."

And so Betty Jo confessed her love that answered so to his need; but, in her very confession, saved their love from themselves. If she had lowered her eyes--Brian Kent, in reverent acknowledgment, bowed his head before her. Then, rising, he walked to the window, where he stood for some time looking out, but seeing nothing.

"It was that horrid man coming yesterday that has so upset us," said Betty Jo, at last. "We were getting on so beautifully, too. I wish he had gone somewhere else for his vegetables and eggs and things!"

Brian was able to smile at this as he turned to face her again, and they both knew that,--for that time, at least,--the danger-point was safely past.

"I wish so, too," he agreed; "but never mind; Auntie Sue will be home in a day or two, and then everything will be all right again."

But when he had taken his hat and was starting out for the day's work, Betty Jo asked, "What are you doing to-day?"

"I was going to work on the fence around the clearing," he answered. "Why?"

"I--I--wish you could find something to do nearer the house," came the slow answer. "Couldn't you work in the garden, perhaps?"

"I should say I could!" he returned heartily.

All that forenoon, as Betty Jo went about her household duties she felt the presence of the thing that filled her so with fear and dread. With vigorous determination she scolded herself for being so foolish, and argued with herself that it was all a nervous fancy born of her restless night. But, the next moment, she would start with a sudden fear and turn quickly as if to face some one whose presence she felt behind her. And Brian, too, as he worked in the garden, caught himself often in the act of pausing to look about with nervous apprehension.

During the noonday meal they made a determined effort to laugh at themselves, and by the time dinner was over had almost succeeded. But when Brian, as he pushed back his chair, said, jestingly, "Well, am I to work in the garden again this afternoon?" Betty Jo answered, emphatically, "Indeed you are! I will not stay another minute in this house alone. Goodness knows what I will do to-night!"

There was no jest in the man's voice as he answered: "I'll tell you what you will do to-night,--you will go to bed and you will go to sleep. You will leave the door to your room wide-open, and I shall lie right there on that couch, so near that a whisper from you will reach me. We will have no more of this midnight prowling, I promise you. If any ghost dares appear, we--"

The reassuring words died on Brian Kent's lips. His eyes, looking over Betty Jo's shoulders, were fixed and staring, and the look on his face sent a chill of horror to the girl's heart. She dared not move nor look around as he sat like a man turned to stone.

A woman's laugh broke the dead silence.

With a scream, Betty Jo sprung to her feet and whirled about.

As one in a trance, Brian Kent arose and stood beside her.

The woman, who stood in the open doorway, laughed again.

Martha Kent's heavy drinking the night before, when her clubhouse friends in a wild debauch had tried to help her to forget, was the climax of many months of like excesses. The mood in which she had sent the man Green from her room was the last despairing flicker of her better instincts. Moved by her memories of better things,--of a better love and dreams and ideals,--she had spent a little hour or two in sentimental regret for that which she had so recklessly cast aside. And then, because there was within her no foundation of abiding principle for her sentiment, she had again put on the character which had so separated her from the life of the man to whom she was married, indeed, but with whom she was never one. With the burning consciousness of what she might have been and of what she was ever tormenting her, she sank, as the hours passed, deeper and deeper into the quicksands of physical indulgence until, in her mad determination to destroy utterly her ability to feel remorse, she lost all mental control of herself, and responded to every insane whim of her drink-disordered brain.

As she stood there, now, in the doorway of that little log house by the river,--face to face with the man and the woman who, though they were united in their love, were yet separated by the very fact of her existence,--she was, in all her hideous, but pitiful, repulsiveness, the legitimate creation of those life-forces which she so fitly personified.

Betty Jo instinctively drew closer to Brian's side.

"Hello, Brian, dear!" said the woman, with a drunken leer. "Thought I'd call to see you in your charming love-nest that Harry Green raved so about. Can't you introduce me to your little sweetheart?"

"No?" she continued, and laughed again. Then coming an unsteady step toward them, she added, thickly: "Very well, Brian, old sport; you won't introduce me,--I'll have to introduce myself." She grinned with malicious triumph at Betty Jo: "Don't be frightened, my dear. It's all right. I'm nobody of importance,--just his wife,--that's all,--just his wife."

Betty Jo, with a little cry, turned to the man who stood as if stricken dumb with horror. "Brian?" she said. "Oh, Brian?"

It was the first time she had ever addressed him by his given name, and Brian Kent, as he looked, saw in those gray eyes no hint of doubt or censure, but only the truest love and sympathy. Betty Jo had not failed in the moment of her supreme testing.

"It's true, all right, isn't it, Brian?" said Martha Kent. "I'm his wife fast enough, my dear. But you don't need to worry,--you two. I'm a good sport,--I am. I've had my fun. No kick coming from me. Just called to pay my respects,--that's all. So-long, Brian, old sport! Good-bye, my dear!"............