“Did she tell you that the poor stranger was young and pretty-faced, with black moustarches? that his store clothes must have cost a fortin, saying nothing of his gold-lined, broadcloth sarrapper?  Did she say that his horse was so lame that when I went to get another he wouldn’t wait for it?  Did she tell you who he was?”

“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 him.  He knew he would find the young man in the wood; for whatever were the truth of the other stories, he and the visitor were identical; he had seen him with his own eyes.  He would confront him face to face and know all; and until then, he could not see his wife again.  He walked on rapidly, but without feverishness or mental confusion.  He saw his duty plainly,—­if Ellen had “backslidden,” he must give her another trial.  These were his articles of faith.  He should not put her away; but she should nevermore be wife to him.  It was he who had tempted her, it was true; perhaps God would forgive her for that reason, but he could never love her again.

The fury of the storm had somewhat abated as he reached the wood.  The fire was still there, but no longer a leaping flame.  A dull glow in the darkness of the forest aisles was all that indicated its position.  Rylands at once plunged in that direction; he was near enough to see the red embers when he heard a sharp click, and a voice called:—­