"No, she did not know," said Rylands sternly, but with a whitening face.

"Well, I'll tell you! The gambler, the shooter!--the man whose name
is black enough to stain any woman he knows. Jim recognized him like
a shot; he sez, the moment he clapped eyes on him at the door, 'Dod
blasted, if it ain't Jack Hamlin!'"

Little as Mr. Rylands knew of the world, he had heard that name. But it
was not THAT he was thinking of. He was thinking of the camp-fire in the
wood, the handsome figure before it, the tethered horse. He was thinking
of the lighted sitting-room, the fire, his wife's bare shoulders, her
slippers, stockings, and the dance. He saw it all,--a lightning-flash to
his dull imagination. The room seemed to expand and then grow smaller,
the figure of Jane to sway backwards and forwards before him. He
murmured the name of God with lips that were voiceless, caught at the
kitchen table to steady himself, held it till he felt his arms grow
rigid, and then recovered himself,--white, cold, and sane.

"Speak a word of this to HER," he said deliberately, "enter her room
while I'm gone, even leave the kitchen before I come back, and I'll
throw you into the road. Tell that hired man, if he dares to breathe it
to a soul I'll strangle him."

The unlooked-for rage of this quiet, God-fearing man, and dupe, as she
believed, was terrible, but convincing. She shrank back into the corner
as he coolly drew on his boots and waterproof, and without another word
left the house.

He knew what he was going to do as well as if it had been ordained for