'Gene's boast before the men at the toll-gate created a sensation in the usually unruffled community. The blow that felled Doc Ramsey was universally condemned, yet no man had the courage to take to task the man who delivered it. The story of his mad declaration concerning Justine spread like wildfire. Of course, no one believed that his boast could be carried out, or attempted, for that matter; but, as gossip traveled, the substance of his vow increased. Within a week the tale had grown in vileness until Crawley was credited with having given utterance to the most unheard-of assertions. Black and foul as his actual words had been, they were tame and weak in comparison with the things the honest farmers and their wives convinced themselves and others that he had said. In the course of time the incident which made historical her wedding night reached the ears of Justine Sherrod. She had seen 'Gene but two or three times in the four months that intervened between that time and the day on which she heard the wretched story from Mrs. Hardesty--an honest soul who had heard 'Gene's words plainly, and was therefore qualified to exaggerate if she saw fit. Once the girl passed him in the lane near the toll-gate. He was leaning on the fence at the roadside as she passed. She had seen him looking at her hungrily as she approached, but when she lifted her eyes again, his broad back was toward her and he was looking across the fields. There was something foreboding in the strong shoulders and corded brown arms that bore down upon the fence in an evident effort at self-control. She felt the panic which makes one wish to fly from an unknown danger. Not daring to look back, she walked swiftly by, possessed of the fear that he was following, that he was ready to clutch her from behind. But he stood there until she turned into the gate a half mile down the lane. It remained for Mrs. Hardesty to tell Justine the story. The bony wife of the toll-gate keeper carried her busy presence up to the cottage one afternoon late in September, and found the young wife resting after a hard, hot ironing. Her pretty face was warm and rosy, her strong arms were bare to the shoulder, her full, deep breast was heaving wearily beneath the loose blue-and-white figured calico. As Mrs. Hardesty came up the path from the gate she could not resist saying to herself, as she looked admiringly but with womanly envy upon the straight figure leaning against the door-casing, fanning a hot face with an old newspaper: "I don' blame 'Gene Crawley er enny other man fer wantin' to have her. They ain't no one like her in the hull State, er this country, either, fer that matter." Justine greeted her cordially. "How do you do, Mrs. Hardesty? Aren't you almost baked in this sun? Come into the shade and sit down. I'll get you a dipper of water and a fan."