“Do you remember anything about your mother,” he asked, “and before you came here?” “Only that we were dreadfully unhappy,” she replied. “There was a boarding house with actresses washing their stockings in the rooms and a landlady they were all afraid of. There was beer in the wash-stand pitcher. But that wouldn't happen to me,” she asserted; “I'd be different. I might be an actress, but in dramas where my hair would be down and everybody love me.” “You're going to marry Wilmer Deakon and be a proper happy wife!” he declared, bringing his fist down on a hard palm. “Get this other nonsense out of your head!” Suddenly he was trembling at the old catastrophe reopened by Lucy. His love for her, and his dread, choked him. She added nothing more, but sat rigid and pale and rebellious. Before long she went in, but Calvin stayed facing the darkness, the menace of the lonely valley. Except for the lumbermen it would be worse in the Sugarloaf cutting. Damn the frogs! Martin Eckles appeared in the buggy the following evening and offered to carry Lucy for a short drive to a near-by farm; with an air of indifference she accepted. Wilmer didn't call, and Calvin sat in silent perplexity with Ettie. The buggy returned later than they had allowed, and Lucy went up to bed without stopping on the porch. The next morning Ettie, with something in her hand, came out to Calvin at the stable shed. “I found this in Lucy's room,” she said simply. It was Martin Eckles' gold ring, set with the insignia in rubies, suspended in a loop of ribbon. A cold angry certitude formed in his being. What a criminal fool he had been! What a blind booby! His only remark, however, brought a puzzled expression to Ettie's troubled countenance. Calvin Stammark exclaimed, “Phebe Braley.” He was silent for a little, his frowning gaze fixed beyond any visible object, then he added: “Put that back where you found it and forget everything.” Ettie laid a hand on his sleeve. “Now, Calvin,” she begged, her voice low and strained, “promise me----” “Forget everything!” he repeated harshly. His face was dark, forbidding, the lines deeply bitten about a somber mouth, his eyes were like blue ice. He walked into Greenstream, where he saw the proprietor of the small single hotel; then, back in his room, he unwrapped from oiled leather a heavy blued revolver; and soon after he saddled his horse and was clattering in a sharp trot in the opposite direction from the village.