"Not now--not now, " protested Will gaily, consumed by an artificial energy. "Don't preach to me while the taste of a drink is still in my mouth, for there's no heart so strong as the one whisky puts into a man. When I feel my courage oozing from my fingers I can reinforce it in less time than it takes to sneak away." Growing boisterous, he assumed a ridiculous swagger, and broke into a fragment of a college song. Until morning he would not probably become himself again, and, knowing this, Christopher desisted helplessly from his efforts at persuasion. "You will lend me the horses?" asked Will, keeping closely to his point. "Are you steady enough?" "Of course--of course, " he stretched out his hands and moved a pace or two away; "and besides, Dolly drives like old Nick." "Well, I'll see," said Christopher, and going to the window, he flung back the rude shutter and looked out into the August night. The warm air touched his face like a fragrant breath, and from the darkness a big white moth flew over his shoulder to where the lantern burned dimly on the floor. "I may take them?" urged Will again, pulling him by the sleeve. At the words Christopher turned and walked slowly back across the barn. "Yes, I'll lend them to you," he answered, without meeting the other's eyes. "You're a jolly good chap; I always knew it, " cried Will heartily. "I'll take them out at midnight, when there's a good moon, and get Jerry Green to drive them back to-morrow. Hurrah! It's the best night's work you ever did!" He went out hurriedly, still singing his college song, and Christopher, without moving from his place, stood watching the big white moth that circled dizzily about the lantern. At the instant he regretted that Will had appealed to him--regretted even that he had promised him the horses. He wished it had all come about without his knowledge--that Fletcher's punishment and Will's ruin had been wrought less directly by his own intervention. Next he told himself that he would have stopped this thing had it been possible, and then with the thought he became clearly aware that it was still in his power to prevent the marriage. He had but to walk across the fields to Fletcher's door, and before sunrise the foolish pair would be safely home again. Will would probably be sent off to recover, and Molly would go back to making butter and to flirting with Fred Turner. On the other hand, let the marriage but take place--let him keep silent until the morning--and the revenge of which he had dreamed since childhood would be accomplished at a single stroke. Bill Fletcher's many sins would find him out in a night. The big moth, fluttering aimlessly from the lantern, flew suddenly in his face, and the touch startled him from his abstraction. With a laugh he shook the responsibility from his shoulders, and then, as he hesitated again for a breath, the racial instinct arose, as usual, to decide the issue.