“Yes—­what is it?”

“Do come out.  You’re missing the best part of the day.”

“All right—­in a minute.”

She continued with, if anything, a slackening of her exertions; she appeared about an hour after she had said “in a minute.”  He was ready to speak, and speak sharply.  But one glance at her, at the exquisite toilette—­of the woods, yet of the civilization that dwells in palaces and reposes languidly upon the exertions of menials—­at her cooling, subduing eyes, so graciously haughty—­and he shut his lips together and subsided.

The next morning it was a knock at her door just as she was waking—­or had it waked her?  “Yes—­what is it?”

“Do come out!  I’m half starved.”

The voice was pleading, not at all commanding, not at all the aggressive, dictatorial voice of the Josh Craig of less than a month before.  But it was distinctly reminiscent of that Craig; it was plainly the first faint murmur, not of rebellion, but of the spirit of rebellion.  Margaret retorted with an icily polite, “Please don’t wait for me.”

“Yes, I’ll wait.  But be as quick as you can.”

Margaret neither hastened nor dallied.  She came forth at the end of an hour and a half.  Josh, to her surprise, greeted her as if she had not kept him waiting an instant; not a glance of sullenness, no suppressed irritation in his voice.  Next morning the knock was a summons.

“Margaret!  I say, Margaret!” came in tones made bold and fierce by hunger.  “I’ve been waiting nearly two hours.”

“For what?” inquired she frigidly from the other side of the door.

“For breakfast.”

“Oh!  Go ahead with it.  I’m not even up yet.”

“You’ve been shut in there ten hours.”

“What of it?” retorted she sharply.  “Go away, and don’t bother me.”

He had put her into such an ill humor that when she came out, two hours later, her stormy brow, her gleaming hazel eyes showed she was “looking for trouble.”  He was still breakfastless—­he well knew how to manipulate his weaknesses so that his purposes could cow them, could even use them.  He answered her lowering glance with a flash of his blue-green eyes like lightning from the dark head of a thunder-cloud.  “Do you know it is nine o’clock?” demanded he.

“So early?  I try to get up late so that the days won’t seem so long.”

He abandoned the field to her, and she thought him permanently beaten.  She had yet to learn the depths of his sagacity that never gave battle until the time was auspicious.

Two mornings later he returned to the attack.

“I see your light burning every night until midnight,” said he—­at breakfast with her, after the usual wait.

“I read myself to sleep,” explained she.

“Do you think that’s good for you?”

“I don’t notice any ill effects.”

“You say your health doesn’t improve as rapidly as you hoped.”