but when you've thought it over soberly you'll find there are a
good many little obstacles in the way of that. You haven't been
brought up to rough it for one. And Guy Ranger, as I think we
settled last night, has probably married half a dozen blacks
already. It's too great a risk, Cherry-ripe! And--if I know
you--you won't take it."

"You don't know me," said Sylvia. She turned, from him and went to
her father. "Have you nothing to say," she asked, "about this vile
and hateful plot? But I suppose you can't. She is your wife.
However much you despise her, you have got to endure her. But I
have not. And so I am going--to-day!"

Her voice rang clear and unfaltering. She looked him straight in
the eyes. He made a sharp movement, almost as if that full regard
pierced him.

He spoke with manifest effort. "You won't go with my consent."

"No?" said Sylvia. "Yet--you would never respect me again if I
stayed. I could never respect myself." She glanced over her
shoulder at the door which Mrs. Ingleton was violently shaking.
"You can let her out," she said contemptuously. "I have had my
turn. I leave her--in possession." She turned to go to the
stairs, then abruptly checked herself, stepped up to her father,
put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him. The anger had gone
out of her eyes. "Good-bye, Dad! Think of me sometimes!" she said.

And with that she was gone, passing Preston by as though she saw
him not, and ascending the stairs quickly, but wholly without