“Certainly not! If you're blind and deaf I can't keep you from committing suicide. I'd lock you up in an asylum for the insane if I had the power to save you from the clutches of the brute.” Mary drew herself erect and faced her friend. “Please don't repeat that word in my hearing--there's a limit to friendship. I think you'd better go----” Jane rose and walked quickly to the door, her lips pressed firmly. “As you like--our lives will be far apart from tonight. It's just as well.” She closed the door with a bang and reached the head of the stairs before Mary threw her arms around her neck. “Please, dear, forgive me--don't go in anger.” The older woman kissed her tenderly, glad of the dim light to hide her own tears. “There, it's all right, honey--I won't remember it. Forgive me for my ugly words.” “I love him, Jane--I love him! It's Fate. Can't you understand?” “Yes, dear, I understand, and I'll love you always--good-by.” “You'll come to my wedding?” “Perhaps----” “I'll let you know----” Another kiss, and Jane Anderson strode down the stairs and out into the night with a sickening, helpless fear in her heart. CHAPTER VIII. JIM'S TRIAL The quarrel had left Mary in a quiver of exalted rage. How dare a friend trample her most sacred feelings! She pitied Jane Anderson and her tribe--these modern feminine leaders of a senseless revolution against man--they were crazy. They had all been disappointed in some individual and for that reason set themselves up as the judges of mankind. “Thank God my soul has not been poisoned!” she exclaimed aloud with fervor. “How strange that these women who claim such clear vision can be so stupidly blind!” She busied herself with her little household, and made up her mind once and for all time to be done with such friendships. The friendship of such women was a vain thing. They were vicious cats at heart--not like her gentle Persian kitten whose soul was full of sleepy sunlight. These modern insurgents were wild, half-starved stray cats that had been hounded and beaten until they had lapsed into their elemental brute instincts. They were so aggravating, too, they deserved no sympathy. Again she thanked God that she was not one of them--that her heart was still capable of romantic love--a love so sudden and so overwhelming that it could sweep life before it in one mad rush to its glorious end. She woke next morning with a dull sense of depression. The room was damp and chilly. It was storming. The splash of rain against the window and the muffled roar from the street below meant that the wind was high and the day would be a wretched one outside. They couldn't take their ride.