She did not take it now. "Miss Calhoun, there is not in the United States a man with more ambition than I have, nor one with a better chance to take his place among other men if--if I had your hand to hold. Give it to me: be my wife. For God's sake, don't take the chance from me!" "Major Fetridge," she said resolutely, but with a strange quaver in her voice, "I love David Cabarreux. I never can marry you. If there is anything else that I can do--" "No, there is nothing you can do," he cried vehemently. "It would have been better you had thought me a drunken brute like the others, and had not recognized me. For you did recognize me, you know." He turned without another word, and walked down the hill with slouching step and head bent. Isabel tried to think of him as the tippling major, but it seemed as if she had talked to another man. * * * * * Mr. Calhoun met Major Fetridge as he came home, but he was in an ill-humor and did not speak to him. Late that evening Sam lay on a bench by the pump. He had been drinking heavily, but he was sober. The squire and Grayson were discussing the event of the day, the will. "Calhoun is savagely disappointed," said the squire. "If Cabarreux had had the money, he would have allowed him to marry Isabel, he says. Now he means to send her North at once." "Are you sure that this Boyer is alive?" said Grayson. "Sam says so. He says he is going to bring the man up soon. Well, it's all up with poor Cabarreux. I'm sorry for them. Bel is a good girl: she ought to have been a happy wife." The men went home to bed, leaving the major on the bench. He lay there for an hour or more. The village had gone to sleep for the night. Dense fogs wrapped the mountains that shut in the little hamlet, but overhead the stars were shining in the near heaven. He rose at last. He was ghastly pale, as if the blood had ceased to flow in his body, but he stood up, drawing himself to his little height with a sudden triumph. "Damned if I don't do it! the time has come for the great deed!" He went with a swagger, as though he walked on air, down the street. Two days later young Cabarreux, sauntering leisurely, as usual, across the square, met the squire and Sam Fetridge coming out of Grayson's office. Both men were greatly excited, but Sam was silent, while the squire talked volubly. He grasped Dave by the hand: "Cabarreux, I congratulate you! You are a lucky dog! I was just saying to Fetridge hyar, 'What is there that fellow hasn't got?'" "What's the matter? what have I got?" said Cabarreux. "The major here hes heerd about that fellow Boyer. He's dead." "Is this true?" turning to Fetridge. The major did not answer. "Of course it's true," said the squire. "Sam has the letter in his pocket.--Show it to him, Fetridge." Sam looked up at the handsome, eager face for a full moment. "Boyer is dead," he said.