that day when love first peeped forth from their hearts like a young face
at the lattice of a sunlit window. Fleda had warned him of trouble, and
that trouble had come!

In his mind she was a woman like none he had ever known; she could
think greatly, act largely, give tremendously. As he stood waiting, the
wonderful, ample life of her seemed to come like a wave towards him. In
his philosophy, intellect alone had never been the governing influence.
Intellect must find its play through the senses, be vitalized by the
elements of physical life, or it could not prevail. There was not one
sensual strain in him, but with a sensuous mind he loved the vital thing.
He was sure that presently Gabriel Druse would disappear, leaving her
behind with him. That was what he meant to ask her to-day--to be and
stay with him always. He knew that the Romanys were gathering in the
prairie. They had been heard of here and there, and some of them
had been seen along the Sagalac, though he knew nothing of that dramatic
incident in the woods when Fleda was kidnapped and Jethro Fawe vanished
from the scene.

As Fleda came towards him, under the same trees which had shielded her
from the sun months ago--now nearly naked and bare--something in her look
and bearing sharply caught his interest. He asked himself what it was.
So often a face familiar over half a lifetime perhaps, suddenly at some
new angle, or because, by chance, one has looked at it searchingly, shows
a new expression, a new contour never before observed, giving fresh
significance to the character. There was that in Ingolby's mind, a depth
of desire, a resolve to stake two lives against the chances of Fate,
which made him look at Fleda now with a revealing intensity. What was
the new thing in her carriage which captured his eye? Presently it
flashed upon him--memories of Mexico and the Southern United States;