Hughey’s narrow little shifting eyes gloated on the girl’s dainty youth and ravished the innocence of her pure outline, even while he ate voraciously of the food before him. A wolf were as fit to be mated with a lamb as the long-jawed, yellow-toothed usurer’s cunning with her fine maiden reserve. Even to Mellie’s stepmother his outstanding merit was the forty acres of rich cotton land he owned. That he had an understanding with Mrs. Chunn was apparent, not less clear than that he counted the girl already his and the wooing a mere formality. “Seems like nobody nevah cooked sweet taters an’ co’n pone like you’uns Miz Chunn. I ’low o’ co’se yo’ done learned Miss Mellie haow.” His wolfish little eyes leered at the girl. Mrs. Chunn tossed the ball back, to cover her stepdaughter’s silence. “Mellie’s a mighty good cook, Mistah Hughey, an’s yo’ say, I kin recommend her pone.” “Tha’s good. I’m a steady man an’ don’t go devilin’ ’round none. ’F I ma’ied again,”—he was talking pointedly at Mellie—“I druther have a woman that c’d work an’ keep her mouth shet than anything else. Kin you-all tell me where I c’n git one that-a-way, Miz Chunn?” Mellie waited on him with a padlocked tongue. When he had gorged himself she slipped away and fled to the hickory lead at the edge of the bayou. In the heavy shade of the forest she buried herself, trying to hide from the shame and the horror of it all. What could she do? How could she escape the net which enmeshed her? To whom could she turn for help? Her throat ached with the intensity of the passion of despair that swept her. Jed would have known what to do. Jed would have saved her. But he was a thousand miles away on some unknown ranch. His mother’s domineering temper had driven him away from home in anger. They had heard of him just once in the four years. That was when the editor of their country paper, stopping at Mrs. Chunn’s over night, had mentioned that her son was still one of the subscribers to the _Beebee Bee_. “Texas is a mighty big place, an’ a mighty fine country I’ve heard, but I reckon, Madam”—with a courtly bow to Mrs. Chunn—“be it nevah so humble the’s no place like home!” “I ’low that’s why he makes out without evah seeing it,” Jed’s mother had returned dryly to the burst of editorial oratory. Her boy was the one weak spot in her inflexible armor of autocracy. To have had him home again she would willingly have made him an exception to her own rule, though she never admitted it even to herself. It was to Jed’s strength that the girl’s weakness went fluttering out in her hour of need. He would have understood, as nobody else could. The indolent, masterful force of him would have won her battle for her. But without him—fear rose in her throat and choked her. She could not hold out—she knew she could not hold out against the quiet, steadfast, terrible pressure her stepmother would bring to bear.