One dark, rainy night in late June, Alix stole out of the old
farmhouse on the ridge and met her lover at the abandoned tollgate
half a mile up the road. He waited there with a buggy and a fast
team of horses. Out of a ramshackle cupboard built in the wall of
the toll-house, they withdrew the bundles surreptitiously placed
there by Alix in anticipation of this great and daring event, and
made off toward the city at a break-neck, reckless speed. They
were married before midnight, and the next day saw them on their
way to the Far West. But not before Alix had despatched a messenger
to her father, telling him of her act and asking his forgiveness
for the sake of the love she bore him. The same courier carried
back to the city a brief response from David Windom. In a shaken,
sprawling hand he informed her that if she ever decided to return
to her home ALONE, he would receive her and forgive her for the
sake of the love he bore her, but if she came with the coward who
stole her away from him, he would kill him before her eyes.

II

The summer and fall and part of the winter passed, and in early
March Alix came home.

David Windom, then a man of fifty, gaunt and grey and powerful,
seldom had left the farm in all these months. He rode about his
far-spread estate, grim and silent, his eyes clouded, his voice
almost metallic, his manner cold and repellent. His tenants, his
labourers, his neighbours, fearing him, rarely broke in upon his
reserve. Only his animals loved him and were glad to see him,--his
dogs, his horses, even his cattle. He loved them, for they were