CHAPTER

      I the kissing of miss grace Sheraton
     II the meeting of Gordon Orme
    III the art of the orient
     IV wars and rumors of war
      V the madness of much kissing
     VI A sad lover
    VII what cometh in the night
   VIII beginning adventures in new lands
     IX the girl with the heart
      X the Supreme court
     XI the morning after
    XII the wreck on the river
   XIII the face in the firelight
    XIV au large
     XV her infinite variety
    XVI buffalo
   XVII Sioux! 
  XVIII the test
    XIX the quality of mercy
     XX Gordon Orme, magician
    XXI two in the desert
   XXII Mandy MCGOVERN on marriage
  XXIII issue joined
   XXIV forsaking all others
    XXV cleaving only unto her
   XXVI in sickness and in health
  XXVII with all my worldly goods I thee Endow
 XXVIII till death do part
   XXIX the garden
    XXX they twain
   XXXI the betrothal
  XXXII the covenant
 XXXIII the flaming sword
  XXXIV the loss of Paradise
   XXXV the yoke
  XXXVI the Goad
 XXXVII the furrow
XXXVIII hearts HYPOTHECATED
  XXXIX the uncovering of Gordon Orme
     XL A confusion in covenants
    XLI Ellen or grace
   XLII face to face
  XLIII the reckoning
   XLIV this indenture witnesseth
    XLV Ellen

CHAPTER I

THE KISSING OF MISS GRACE SHERATON

I admit I kissed her.

Perhaps I should not have done so.  Perhaps I would not do so again.  Had I known what was to come I could not have done so.  Nevertheless I did.

After all, it was not strange.  All things about us conspired to be accessory and incendiary.  The air of the Virginia morning was so soft and warm, the honeysuckles along the wall were so languid sweet, the bees and the hollyhocks up to the walk so fat and lazy, the smell of the orchard was so rich, the south wind from the fields was so wanton!  Moreover, I was only twenty-six.  As it chances, I was this sort of a man:  thick in the arm and neck, deep through, just short of six feet tall, and wide as a door, my mother said; strong as one man out of a thousand, my father said.  And then—­the girl was there.

So this was how it happened that I threw the reins of Satan, my black horse, over the hooked iron of the gate at Dixiana Farm and strode up to the side of the stone pillar where Grace Sheraton stood, shading her eyes with her hand, watching me approach through the deep trough road that flattened there, near the Sheraton lane.  So I laughed and strode up—­and kept my promise.  I had promised myself that I would kiss her the first time that seemed feasible.  I had even promised her—­when she came home from Philadelphia so lofty and superior for her stopping a brace of years with Miss Carey at her Allendale Academy for Young Ladies—­that if she mitigated not something of her haughtiness, I would kiss her fair, as if she were but a girl of the country.  Of these latter I may guiltily confess, though with no names, I had known many who rebelled little more than formally.