He tried to rage against her, but instead he could think of nothing but her sweet imperiousness, her dazzling beauty, her cheerfulness under all circumstances, and her loyalty to him.

She had given up everything for him—­for his sake she had defied her father, renounced all share in his great wealth, suffered the hardships and loneliness of the prairie, all for him.

Her workbag lay on the table, partly open.  It seemed to call and beckon to him.  He took it tenderly in his hands, and from its folds there fell a crumpled sheet of paper.  He smoothed it out, and found it partly written on in Evelyn’s clear round hand.

He held it to the light eagerly, as one might read a message from the dead.  Who was Evelyn writing to?

“_ When you ask me to leave my husband you ask me to do a dishonorable and cowardly thing.  Fred has never_”—­the writing ceased abruptly.  Fred read it again aloud, then sprang to his feet with a smothered exclamation.  Only one solution presented itself to his mind.  She had been writing to Rance Belmont trying to withstand his advances, trying to break away from his devilish influence.  She had tried to be true to herself and to him.

Fred remembered then with bitter shame the small help he had given her.  He had wronged her when he struck Rance Belmont.

One overwhelming thought rose out of the chaos of his mind—­she must be set free from the baneful influence of this man.  If she were not strong enough to resist him herself, she must be helped, and that help must come from him—­he had sworn to protect her, and he would do it.

There was just one way left to him now.  Fred’s face whitened at the thought, and his eyes had an unnatural glitter, but there was a deadly purpose in his heart.

In his trunk he found the Smith and Wesson that one of the boys in the office had given him when he left, and which he had never thought of since.  He hastily but carefully loaded it and slipped it into his pocket.  Then reaching for his snowy overcoat, which had fallen to the floor, and putting the lamp in the window, more from habit than with any purpose, he went out into the night.

The storm had reached its height when Fred Brydon, pulling has cap down over his ears, set out on his journey.  It was a wild enough night to turn any traveller aside from his purpose, but Fred Brydon, in his rage, had ceased to be a man with a man’s fears, a man’s frailties, and had become an avenging spirit, who knew neither cold nor fatigue.  A sudden stinging of his ears made him draw his cap down more closely, but he went forward at a brisk walk, occasionally breaking into a run.

He had but one thought in his mind—­he must yet save Evelyn.  He had deserted her in her hour of need, but he would yet make amends.

The wind which sang dismally around him reminded him with a sickening blur of homesickness of the many pleasant evenings he and Evelyn had spent in their little shack, with the same wind making eerie music in the pipe of the stove.  Yesterday and to-day were separated by a gulf as wide as death itself.