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 he knows everything," he told her. "I'm waiting till old Dunham gives the word. That old boy knows bones. He was settin' legs out in the mountains with a gun-barrel for a splint before these lady-killers were foaled."

And then one day, when they were almost ready to go and she was packing his clothing, the gay shirts and neckerchiefs, the boots inlaid with colored leathers, the heavy chaps, the broad-brimmed hat, the nurse brought in some old newspapers for packing. And he learned about Herbert! He was in his wheeled chair at the time, and she looked up at the rustle of paper and his intent deadly silence. She went to look over his shoulder, but he held it up beyond her reach.

"I'm finishing this," he said coldly.

It was all there; the brilliant preparations for the wedding, the gifts, her flight, Tom himself on horseback, and it ended with a highly drawn account of the shooting. She was tertified, but he was quiet enough at first.

"Why didn't you tell me about him?"

"It wouldn't have changed things, would it?"

"It would and it wouldn't," he said slowly. "I'm no kidnapper, that's all. If I'd known all that"

"Are you trying to say you wouldn't have married me?" There was a catch in her throat.

"I'm trying to say I'd have gone to him like a man, and not acted like a yellow dog."

Later on, however, his jealousy of Herbert began to manifest itself in the form of scorn.

"And so you were going to marry Percy! With all the he-men there are in the world, you had to pick on him! A fellow that, if he ever saw a hair on his chest, he'd shave it off! And you let him hang around you and make love to you! God Almighty, girl, when I think of him kissing you it makes me sick."

She said little or nothing. She never saw that behind his outrageous talk lay the tragedy of his own crippled condition, his poverty and his bitter jealousy. She was frightened and not entirely just. She told herself that he had unsuspected violences, even cruelties; that he was primitive,