DURING that three days Kay suffered more intensely than she had ever suffered before. She tried hard to reason with herself; after all, why not take him at his word? He had wanted to marry her. He need not have done it. A word to her that day and she would have gone back.
But now and then Herbert's words came back to her. "He's violent; he fights and he drinks—and he's a bad man with women."
A bad man with women! Then if that were so, perhaps this girl had a call on him. And he had said he had acted like a yellow dog to her. What did that imply? What was he doing in town all this time; this man who fought and drank, and perhaps debauched? This strange man who was her husband? A little more time, perhaps, and she would have been fairer, but in the early morning of the day after the Fair had closed, Kay who had been sleeping badly, heard his horse coming slowly up the lane, and sat up in her bed.
Tom did not come in at once. He went to the corral, grained the animals, waited until they had finished and then turned them out. Even then he seemed loath to come into the house. From the window as she was getting the breakfast she saw him rolling a cigarette by the corral. He looked very tired, and when he finally started for the house his limp was painfully apparent. He came slowly and evidently unwillingly, and as he neared her she saw a vivid bruise on his cheek.
She turned a little sick. Herbert was right after all! He was weak. He was one of the brotherhood who sought escape from reality in liquor. When he finally opened the kitchen door she was busy at the stove. She could not speak, and after eying her for a moment he threw up his head.
"I'll get you some water," he said without further greet-
