The assumed tenderness in her voice had vanished now. After all she had not changed. What he had supposed was a return of the old cameraderie was but another of her covert sneers. She drew her knees up under the embroidered coverlid, resting her chin firmly upon them, and for some moments gazed in dogged silence in front of her, with half-closed eyes. "Then you have settled the matter," she said at length, without looking up. "Yes," he replied. "You have known for years that I have longed for just such a place; now I'm going to have it." She raised herself on her elbow and looked straight at him. "Then you'll have it to yourself," she burst out, "and you'll live in it without me; do you understand? You and Margaret can have whatever you want up there together, but you'll count me out. Oh, you need not go out of your head," she cried, noticing his sudden anger. Thayor sprang from his chair, all his anger in his face. "You'll do as I say!" he exclaimed, "and when my camp up at Big Shanty Brook is built you will come to it--come to it as any self-respecting wife should--out of your duty to me and to your daughter." "I will not!" she retorted, her breast heaving. "You will do as I say, madam," he returned, lowering his voice. "This luxury--this nonsensical life you crave is at an end. From this day forth I intend to be master of my own house and all that it contains. Do you understand?" She stared at him fixedly, her hand on her throat. A certain flash of pride in the man before her welled up in her heart. She hadn't thought it was in him. "Yes--and master of you," he went on, pacing before her. "I'll sell this house if need be!" he cried with a gesture of disgust. "I don't want it--I never did; it was your making, not mine. Tell me what life I have had in it? There has not been a day since it was built that I would not have given twice its cost to be out of it. From this day forth my time is my own," and with a blow he brought his fist down on the back of the chair. Then squaring his shoulders he looked fearlessly into her eyes. Something of the roar of the torrent of Big Shanty Brook was in his voice as he spoke--something, too, of the indomitable grit and courage of the old dog. For some seconds she did not answer. The outburst had given her time to think, but what move should she make next? Up to now she had lived as she pleased and had managed to be selfishly happy. She knew he could force her into a life she loathed, and she realized, too, that, shrewd and resourceful as her friend the doctor was, there were obstacles that neither he nor she could overcome. Instantly her course was determined upon. "Sam," she began, a forced sob rising in her throat, "I want you to listen to me." Her voice had changed to one of infinite tenderness; now it was the voice of a penitent child, asking a favour. Thayor looked at her in astonishment.