round the corner, into the one leafy seclusion that the whole outdoors of the town this day afforded. This was Lahleet's erstwhile bench of mourning beneath the tamarack tree, with the angle of two blind walls in front and a screening crescent of cedar shrubs surrounding. Grateful for the solitude, Henry sank down upon the bench, a prey to this final despair.
The girl had followed softly and stood at a little distance watching the lines of realization etch themselves steadily into his lean face—watched savage, relentless, exultant, till at length it seemed to her her hated enemy must have died. Then, like an autopsist trying to determine that the dead are dead, she began merciless verbal stabbings to see if sensation still remained.
"The girl's no good, Henry!" she announced tentatively, then waited. Harrington's bent head did not move, his graven face changed no expression, not so much as a single chiseled line.
"She isn't worth a damn!" the Indian girl experimented more boldly, and again waited. No answer.
"She hasn't got a kick in her—not one!" . . . Silence still.
"She's a doll—not a woman." This with tones of infinite scorn. "She was a business connection only; and now the business is busted. Forget her, Henry—dear!"
Harrington had let these insults to his love fall unchallenged. Perhaps his heart was past sensation.
Lahleet came boldly near now and sat down upon the bench. Harrington was motionless, bowed. The girl studied him critically, clinically almost, and at length the merciless lines about her mouth began to
