“So you intend to stay up there all summer?” in the same half playful, half sneering tone.

“No, dear; I intend to buy a tract of land and build a house, or camp, that will house you properly.”

This last came as a distinct shock, but she did not waver.

“And your decision is final, I suppose,” she returned, as she readjusted her rings.  “And when will this be?” she added.

“As soon as I can get the title deeds—­not later than a month at the outside.  Would you like me to tell you about the country?”

She shrugged her shoulders, raising herself among the pillows.

“No, I shouldn’t know anything more about it.”

“But you haven’t the slightest idea what Big Shanty Brook is like,” he said with conviction—­“a superb wilderness, an unbroken forest.  Imagine a—­”

She raised her hand with a bored little laugh.

“Now, Sam, dear, don’t,” she protested.  “I hate long descriptions of places; besides, I can imagine it perfectly—­a muddy old stream with a lot of sad looking trees sticking about in a wilderness miles away from any human being anyone in his or her right mind would ever care to see.  As for your Holcomb and the other two tramps, they would simply bore me to death.”

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.