Neither of them heard the door open or saw a man step into the room. Neither of them saw him take the counter in one flying leap. An arm reached out and plucked Dodson from his victim. It hurled him back against the wall, where he struck with great force, hung for a moment, and dropped limply to the floor. Mollie lifted her eyes to those of Scot McClintock and into the white face came two flaming flowers. For in the eyes that burned down into hers she read that which brought a burst of music into her heart. She had fought against this—oh, how she had schooled herself to deny it! But with his strong arms round her, his heart beating against her own, what was the use of pretending any longer? Her supple body made a little motion of nestling closer. She began to sob quietly. “He—he——” Scot brushed her explanation aside. “Forget him. He’s out of your life. It’s you and I now. I kept away. I gave him his chance. I gave you yours to go it alone. That’s ended. I’m going to take care of you now.” He lifted her flushed face and kissed it. That kiss stirred to life all the Puritan blood of Mollie, the racial inheritance from a rock-ribbed ancestry. She pushed him from her with all the force of a despairing energy. “No . . . no . . . no!” she cried, and fled to the room back of the shop. She was afraid of his passionate tenderness for her, but she was afraid, too, of the deep yearning of her whole being for the love he offered. In the days that followed Scot McClintock fought the fight of his life. He had always prided himself that he was master of his desires. When he yielded to self-indulgence it was because he chose to follow for a time the path of dalliance. But this keen-edged longing for the woman he loved flooded his being, swept over him like great waves over a bather in the surf. It set him fifty times pacing the floor, to and fro, to and fro. For the first time in his life he learned that he had nerves. There was a passionate urge in him to take what he wanted. He could make her happy in spite of all the tongues that would clack, in spite of cynical smiles and hard unforgiveness on the part of the world. But could he? Would his love be enough to insure Mollie’s happiness if he overbore her scruples? He knew it would not. There was in her a something fine and flowerlike that blossomed shyly through all the sordid impedimenta of her life. If he snatched at her, as a child does at a rose, the fragrant beauty of her would be crushed and lost. Yet Scot knew that it was the best of him that wanted her. This was the real thing that had come to him at last. Love had penetrated the folly and waste of his life. Its rapier thrust had pushed through the conceits of manner and dress in which he had wrapped himself. It called to the simple elemental manhood in him.