The bitterness of lovers’ quarrels is in ratio with their passion for each other.  These two loved with complete abandon, consequently each could wound the other maddeningly.

But the plant of their love, vigorous as it was, was not rooted in old acquaintance.  When the top withered under the blasts of anger there was no store of life below.  Now each was secretly terrified by the strangeness of the being to whom he had yielded his soul.

Ambrose, wild with pain, no longer recked what he said.  “You make a man mad!” he cried.  “You will not listen to reason.  A thing must be so just because you want it that way.  I rack my brains for words to save your feelings, and this is what I get!  Very well, you shall have the bald truth.”

“Leave the house!” cried Colina.

“Not until I have spoken out!”

She clapped her hands over her ears.

“That is childish!” he said scornfully.  “You can hear me!  Throughout the whole north your father is called the slave-driver!”

Colina faced him still and white.  This was the very incandescence of anger.  “Go!” she said.  “I’m done with you!”

“One thing more,” he said doggedly.  “The price of wheat.  I shouldn’t have said anything about justice.  Putting that aside, it will be good business for you to pay the farmers their price.  Otherwise you’ll have red rebellion on your hands!”

As Ambrose made for the door he met Gordon Strange coming in.

“Wait!” Colina commanded.  “I want you to hear this.”

It was impossible to tell from her set face what she meant to do, Ambrose waited, hoping against hope.

“You want to know about the wheat?” said Colina.

“First, your father,” said Strange, anxious and compassionate.

“He is not dangerously ill,” said Colina.

“Ah!” said Strange.  “Yes, the farmers are waiting.”

Colina said clearly:  “The price is to be one-fifty per bushel.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Strange.  “I will tell them.”  He went.

“Ah, Colina!” cried Ambrose brokenly.

She left the room slowly, as if he had not been there.

Ambrose could not have told how he got out of the house.

CHAPTER XIV.

Simon Grampierre.

Ambrose lay in his tent with his head hidden in his arms, trying not to think.  Job licked his hand unheeded.  A hail from the river forced him to rouse himself.  As he crawled out he instinctively cast a glance at the sun.  It was mid-afternoon.

Tole Grampierre landed on the stones.  “You are seeck!” he exclaimed, seeing Ambrose’s face.

Though life loses all its savor, it must be carried on with a good air. “Mal de tete!” said Ambrose, making light of it.  “It will soon pass.”

Tole accepted the explanation.  He told Ambrose that he had come that morning and found him gone.  He had come back to tell him what the white man already knew—­that, though Gaviller had been laid low by a mysterious stroke, he had sent word from his sick-bed that he would pay no more than one-fifty for wheat.