A little cry of fear broke from her.

"Gloria," pleaded Gratton. "Don't you know I wouldn't----?"

"I'll be down in a minute," she told him, drawing as far away as she could, speaking with nervous haste. "Go down, please. Wait for me."

"The justice is downstairs," he said, his own voice agitated despite his effort for mastery. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, yes! In a minute I'll be down. Go. Please go."

He hesitated; she could have screamed at him. But presently he began withdrawing. Slowly, hideously slowly---"When you are ready. And--he has a long ride back, Gloria. We should not keep him waiting."

She watched until he had gone. Then she crouched, staring with wide, unseeing eyes into the outside dark. The man would go right away; she would not have even him to mitigate the horrible condition of aloneness with Gratton.

"I won't marry him!" she cried out. "I won't. I hate him. He is a beast, and--I won't!"

There was, after all, nothing to force her. Nothing--save that she had been away all this time with Gratton, that he had bought clothing for her, that he had registered himself and wife. And the newspapers! She heard a door slam and sprang up; if the justice went away now without marrying them! She would marry him; why, if he had been of a notion to demur she would have made him marry her!