"Don't you forget that I am watching for the coming of that canoe," he said, sinking his voice to a note of sinister meaning. "If Power and I meet, nothing that you can do will save him. It is possible, of course, that he may avoid me this time. You can scream a warning, and he may, or may not, skulk off out of range. But, as sure as there is a sun shining in the sky, so surely will I follow and kill him. Each moment you hesitate brings him nearer the grave. You can save him, if you like; but you must buy his life on my terms, now. It will be too late in a few minutes." She threw herself on her knees, and raised her swimming eyes in humblest pleading. "Father, think what you are doing!" she sobbed, clutching at his hands in a heartbroken way. "I am your own little daughter, the girl you used to be so proud of, the girl who once loved you dearly, and who is ready to forget the past and love you again. You would not condemn me to the degraded life of a woman who loathes and has been unfaithful to her husband, and yet permits him to regard her as his wife? I may be the meanest of God's creatures in your sight; but you are asking me to act as no decent-minded woman can act, and live. Ah, no! Do not speak yet! Listen, I implore you! God give me words to touch your heart! Have you blotted from your mind all recollection of our long years together on the ranch? Does it count for nothing that I rejoiced with you when times were good, and sorrowed with you when misfortunes came? Have you forgotten my mother? Ah, dear Heaven, my mother! You loved her, did you not? You have said you loved me, not alone for my own sake, but because I reminded you of her. She, at least, was good and pure, and perhaps her spirit is with us now, grieving for my sin, it may be, but surely not content with the dreadful lot you would impose on one who is your child and hers. Oh, father dear, do not turn away from me! Is there nothing I can promise that will soften your heart? I will leave Derry. Yes, I swear it! To save him, and you, I'll go away and never see him again, writing him some cruel lie in order to assuage his misery; but you shall not, you must not, make my return to Hugh Marten the price of my obedience to your will!" Willard wrenched himself free, and took a sheet of notepaper, an envelop, and a pencil from a pocket. He placed them on the rough table, and stood in the doorway, watching the sunlit lake. His expression was dour, implacable, malignant in its ferocious joy; for he held Power in the hollow of his hand, and would relinquish naught of his vengeful scheme.