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“Oh–oh,” she said at length, and her shining eyes were turned from the groom to me, and back and forth between us, “if you could have seen your faces!”

V

It seemed strange to us, an alteration in the logical and natural, but neither the groom nor I received corporal punishment for our attempt at escape. Farallone had read our minds like an open book; he had, as it were, put us up to the escapade in order to have the pure joy of thwarting us. That we should have been drawn to his exact waiting-place like needles to the magnet had a smack of the supernatural, but was in reality a simple and explicable happening. For if we had not ascended to the little meadow, Farallone, alertly watching, would have descended from it, and surprised us at some further point. That we should have caught no glimpse of his great bulk anywhere ahead of us in the day-long stretch of open, park-like country was also easily explained. For Farallone had made the most of the journey in the stream itself, drifting with a log.

And although, as I have said, we were not to receive corporal punishment, Farallone visited his power upon us in other ways. He would not at first admit that we had intended to escape, but kept praising us for having followed him so loyally and devotedly, for saving him the trouble of a return journey, and for thinking to bring along the bulk of our worldly possessions. Tiring at length of this, he switched to the opposite point of view. He goaded us nearly to madness with his criticisms of our inefficiency, and he mocked repeatedly the groom’s ill-timed cry of Liberty.

“Liberty!” he said, “you never knew, you never will know, what that is–you miserable little pin-head. Liberty is for great natures.

‘Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage.’

But the woman shall know what liberty is. If she had wanted to leave me there was nothing to stop her. Do you think she’d have followed the river, leaving a broad trail? Do you think she’d have walked right into this meadow–unless she hadn’t cared? Not she. Did you ask her advice, you self-sufficiencies? Not you. You were the men-folk, you thought, and you were to have the ordering of everything. You make me sick, the pair of you….”

He kept us awake until far into the night with his jibes and his laughter.

“Well,” he said lastly, “good-night, girls. I’m about sick of you, and in the morning we part company….”

At the break of dawn he waked us from heavy sleep–me with a cuff, the groom with a kick, the bride with a feline touch upon the hair.

“And now,” said he, “be off.”

He caught the bride by the shoulder.

“Not you,” he said.

“I am to stay?” she asked, as if to settle some trivial and unimportant point.

“Do you ask?” said he; “Was man meant to live alone? This will be enough home for us.” And he turned to the groom. “Get,” he said savagely.

“Mr. Farallone,” said the bride–she was very white, but calm, apparently, and collected–“you have had your joke. Let us go now, or better, come with us. We will forget our former differences, and you will never regret your future kindnesses.”

“Don’t you want to stay?” exclaimed Farallone in a tone of astonishment.

“If I did,” said the bride gently, “I could not, and I would not.”

“What’s to stop you?” asked Farallone.

“My place is with my husband,” said the bride, “whom I have sworn to love, and to honor, and to obey.”

“Woman,” said Farallone, “do you love him, do you honor him?”

She pondered a moment, then held her head high.

“I do,” she said.

“God bless you,” cried the groom.

“Rats,” said Farallone, and he laughed bitterly. “But you’ll get over it,” he went on. “Let’s have no more words.” He turned to the groom and to me.