Coaley, feeling his rider's mood, sensing also the portent of the heavy, heat-saturated atmosphere and the rolling thunder heads, slowed his springy trot to a walk and tossed his head uneasily from side to side. Then, quite without warning, Lance wheeled the horse short around and touched the reeking flanks with his heels. "I'm seventeen kinds of a damn fool--but I can't stand any more of this!" he muttered savagely, and rode at a sharp trot with his back to the slow-gathering storm. He found Mary Hope half a mile from the Douglas house, at the edge of the meadow round which Hugh was driving a mower, the steady, metallic clicking of the shuttle-like sickle sounding distinct from the farther side of the motionless green expanse. Mary Hope was standing leaning against one lone little poplar tree, her hat in her hand, and her eyes staring dully into the world of sorrowful thoughts. Relief and a great, hungry tenderness flooded the soul of Lance when he saw her. He pulled up and swung off beside her. "Girl--thank the good God you're all right," he said, and took her in his arms, the veins on his temples beating full with his hot blood. "I had to come. I had to see you. You've haunted me. Your voice has called me--I was afraid--I had to come--and now I'm not going to let you go. Oh, girl, you're mine! By all the powers of heaven and earth, you're mine! The Lorrigan name--what does it matter? You're mine--I love you. You'll love me. I'll _make_ you love me. You'll love me till you won't care who I am or who you are, or whether there are any other people in the world--you'll love me so! And I'll love you always, always,--to death and beyond, and beyond what lies after that. Girl, girl--you do need me! You need my love. You need it because it's the biggest thing in the world--and your love is going to match it. We'll get married--we'll make a world of our own, just you and I. We won't care where we make it--it will be our world, the world of our love. Are you game? Are you game to love Lance the way Lance loves you? Oh, girl, tell me!" A chill breath swept them like the memory of her father's hate. A deep, basso rumble drowned whatever reply she stammered. He sheltered her in his arms, kissed her lips, her eyes, her hair, went back to her lips again. "Oh, girl--when a Lorrigan loves--!" He cried softly, exultantly. "I tried not to--but I had to love you. It's Fate. Are you afraid to love me back? Are you afraid?" "No Lorrigan can cry coward to a Douglas," Mary Hope panted. "But--but my mother will be that--" "My mother will be that--all of that, and more," Lance stopped her, still exulting in her love. "All the Lorrigans--what does it matter? Life's for you and me to live, you girl with the bluest eyes in the world. When will you marry me? To-day? Tell me to-day!" "Oh!" gasped Mary Hope, breathless still from the suddenness of it all. "Oh, not to-day--oh, but the headlong way you have! I--I canna think. I--"