“You listen to me, and you keep still about it, but you remember what I say!” A new Luke Manders, fiery, implacable--new voice, new eyes, new grasp of iron. Gloriana-Virginia Tolliver’s persistent word flashed into her mind and out again--“I’m jes’ pintly _skeered_ of Luke Manders....” It came in of its own volition but she drove it out, loyally, in a panic at herself for harboring it even an instant. “And your granny!” The image of his ancient kinswoman that day of the first meeting--“hit’s ontelling, what you might do and be, if you was to be fotched on!” How unerringly the old crone had divined power and purpose in her “son’s _son’s_ son!” “Yes, Granny would be satisfied.” He relaxed a trifle, letting go of her throbbing wrists, and she wondered if his mind had reverted to the witch-woman’s threat to “ha’nt him” unless he came to Dr. Darrow. “She would be satisfied.” He repeated it, gravely, and there was reassurance in sensing the return to his normal manner. He was walking swiftly, with long strides, and Glen, in spite of her fine height, had to take a skipping step now and then to keep up with him. With a touch at her elbow he guided her from the deserted side street into a winding, mounting lane which led, in rambling, dallying fashion to the back of her house, and looking up into his face again, Glen saw that her hour had come--the hour she had visualized on waking that morning. She stood still when he did, and met his eyes fearlessly and gladly. There was no self-consciousness, no shyness, no maiden reserves. She was conscious of a deep wonder within herself. Was it like this, then? Not in the few romances she had read! She had known since she was fourteen that she would some day fall in love with Luke Manders, and now she was nineteen, the age of her father’s stipulation, and she was falling in love with him, or rather, she had fallen in love with him this morning. Bold, beautiful, fearless and free, the golden lad of their golden legend; she was carrying out her father’s last and dearest wish, living and dying. “If there’s anything in this ‘hereafter’ stuff ... if I’m--anywhere--you’ll know I’m _glad_!” Her eyes looked very blue in the sudden pallor of her golden-olive face with its halo of glowing hair. It was not like the books, then; she felt solemn, thankful, uplifted; very close to her father. Again Luke Manders was breathing like a runner, and again his voice was strange, with another strangeness. There was about him now a warmth and a softness, but they were as implacable as the harshness had been, and as little to be denied. “Remember that first day? How I caught you by your hair and jerked you back?” “Yes.” She was a little breathless. “You said--‘Hi, Sis, run duck your head in the Branch! Didn’t you know your hair was a-fire?’” She laughed, but he did not laugh with her. Instead, she felt herself swept into an embrace which was compounded of flame and steel, and heard the second of his strange new voices.