She caught Rover's tail, and raced away with him over the big drift that ran up to the top of the snow-flattened haystack. Jim Burns took off his hat and rubbed the back of his head till it tingled. "Can't make head or tail of that'n," he said finally, replacing the weathered "dogskin" cap; "But I might ast _him_. Say--I _will_ ast him! I b'en a kind of a brother to the girl, and I got a right to know, ain't I?" The chance to ask Ware, who had gone for a stroll about the farm with Nixon, did not present itself till toward evening. Then Burns, returning with the horse from the trough, met Sir William, thoughtfully inspecting the architecture of an old log wing of the stable. "Clever work, that dovetailing, Burns," Ware said casually; then, as he noted that Jim Burns had halted and fixed him with a glance conveying what seemed to be determination, the baronet, said, briskly, "Well, old chap? What is it?" "I got something to say to you, sir," Jim Burns responded, setting his feet a little apart and squaring his shoulders. "Say on," Ware invited, dropping his hands in his pockets, and regarding his catechist pleasantly. "It's about Daise," Jim Burns went on, "I've knew her since she was a kid. We went to school together, and we was pretty good chums them days, and in fact right up to the time she skinned out with yon Beatty. I was figurin' I'd marry her some time (she claims I never said nothin', but I wouldn't have got no satisfaction anyway, if I _had_ ast her, which I guess after all I didn't, but she might have knew, for I didn't try to cover it up none). Well, now she comes back married up to you. O' course, the girl's her own boss, I know that. But--if you don't like me talkin' to you this way, sir, you'll have for to lump it; I never was one to hold back anything I got to say, not for no man--there seems to me to be somethin' queer, mighty queer, about the way you an' her yips along. You go out with Jack for a walk, or for a load o' hay, or off to town; and she hurrays around with the dog or me. Yous never seem to be together, nor neither one of you to care one rip what the other's doin'. And--now here's the place where maybe there's an apology comin' to you for what I'm going to say, so I'm going to apologise first, and then go ahead--" "Go on," said Sir William, gravely. "I been brought up out here in the country," Jim Burns continued, a little more slowly, "and I don't know what they do in town, or over there where you come from; but out in this country, when two people are married, they're married. It don't matter whether he's old and she's young, or whether she's old and he's young. They're married, and they act married, and they stay married, or they don't get the respect of the settlement--and if they don't get that, they might as well be dead." "Do go on," said Ware, his eyes alight. "I'm vastly interested, Burns. I am, really. What is your point?"