crapings and scarred flesh. "Look at us both! He led me through the chaparral, and down the rattle-snake gorge. Hasn't he a right to hear?"

"You probably think that you are indifferent to the money side of the question," he went on, "but you spend a good deal of that same money, and it has to be furnished you. Money is easy to spend and hard to get. Will you get into the carriage?"

John Nash could have screamed to the woman to obey. Unnoticed as he was, he was trembling. What he had thought of as anguish of spirit on the trail seemed paltry now.

Her husband turned away with a hardset breath. His profile was a wonder cut in white against the dark trees; it was such a head as Leonidas might have worn. "You're listening, Morton? I heard the Superintendent talking to you last night. You were under my window. It was an accident at first, for I had been asleep. Afterward I listened. No, I did not care But the woman was silent. The world for my honor. I would listen again. I around her was unreal and white; from heard the Superintendent tell you that the the timber came a coyote's yelping wail. company needed this valley. But I heard She watched her husband across a gulf you, my husband, protest. I heard you filled with the loneliness of a forest night; say that David Thayer was a poor man her own face looked as lonely. with a family, and that the loss of his land would ruin him. I heard you urge the Superintendent to offer Thayer a price for his rights. My heart was so proud. I lay-" her voice slanted upward in a sob, "I lay with my hands clenched to keep from crying out in my joy in you. And then-and then I heard you beaten down. I heard all the threats and tales of expediency. And then the man rode away, and I knew that it was too late for argument. But he said that he was going to stop for a day at the new dam, and I knew that David Thayer had twenty-four hours of grace."

"If you had told me

I

"You would have forbidden me. have never disobeyed you, I never shall. But I had to go. I could see nothing else to do. You had promised. It was only a moment's yielding, but it was done. I was free, and I could save you. I knew that you would not forgive yourself when you had time to think. What was there left for me, but to do for you what you longed to do for yourself-and could not!" Her husband closed his hand on the spokes of the wheel. "You have cost the company that trusts me a good many thousand dollars, Isabel." There was no gentleness in his quiet. "The loss of my position will be less humiliating than the explanations I shall be forced to make. A man whose wife is disloyal to his interests is not-envied."

Her body winced, but her eyes did not droop; they seemed the only life in her face as she stood without answering.

"We won't mangle our love with recriminations, Morton," she said at length. "It has been-so perfect. If we must part let it be a clean wound. And I don't think that you can forgive me. You have never been able to submit to suggestion from a woman-even from me. And now I have humiliated you. You will not be able to forget."

"If you could have thought of this earlier

"Think of it! I thought of nothing else in the long night." Her composure broke; a longing that she could not hold in check flamed from her lips to her eyes. "But I had to go. For it was true. I had spent your money. I had never understood. Women don't, for you don't let them know. You sacrificed your honor for me—to supply my exactions. If you'd had no wife, you—you would have laughed in the man's face."

He turned away. "It was a somewhat useless sacrifice, Isabel." The words came stiffly, as if drilled to subjection. "If I'm not to be trusted once, I'm not again. A weak man is a weak man to the end."

"Oh!" The exclamation was a crescendo of triumph. "You, weak! It was because you are so strong that I had to save you. I know you. Why, think," she gave a trembling laugh of unconquerable pride, "it never occurred to you that you might conceal my part in this; that you might save us both by keeping silence. You don't understand anything but the straight path. Why, the strongest slip

JAPAN

BY THOMAS F. MILLARD

LL persons who have made a study of the present situation in the Far East will agree, I think, that there is a possibility that the settlement may bring Japan, should she be eventually victorious, into a conflict of interests and opinions with some of the more prominent Western powers. Even the most enthusiastic pro-Japanese foreigner admits this.

"But Japan won't stand any nonsense this time," he says, when the subject is mentioned. "She won't permit anyone again to rob her of the fruits of her victory, as in 1895. She is not afraid of the whole bunch, and if they try to interfere she will send them about their business mighty quick, I tell you."

One hears this opinion expressed daily, even hourly, in discussion of the question in places where foreigners assemble; and if there are dissenters they have the prudence to keep their tongues still in public. Much more does it represent the idea of the average Japanese. Rightly or wrongly, the average Japanese has not the slightest doubt just now of his nation's ability to whip any country in the world. Of course, no considerable number of Japanese leaders entertain this view, but the leaders encourage the people to think so. Thus popular sentiment will probably support the Government in any attitude it may elect to adopt toward the questions involved in the settlement, even if such a policy should threaten to lead to hostilities. This popular belief gives the ruling oligarchy practically a free hand in its direction of events, and adds a seemingly weighty backing to any aggressive policy. So in order to be able correctly to estimate, should friction arise, just how far the position assumed by the oligarchy is genuine and to be seriously regarded, and how much is based on what Americans call "bluffing," an examination of certain conditions bearing on the matter becomes pertinent.

This requires, at the beginning, a brief consideration of Japan's somewhat peculiar national situation. She finds herself with an expansive national ambition geographically circumscribed by insular limitation. She finds herself with a rapidly accumulating population, which threatens to become numerically burdensome to the present national domain; and she finds, in common with other Oriental nations, large sections of the world already barred or likely to be barred to settlement by her people. This reason, as well as the natural advantages of contiguity, make the continent of Asia apparently the most suitable if not the only place to which her population may emigrate. Recognition of these facts has given to her desire for at least equal influence in disposing of the future of China a large sympathy among Western peoples. It should be remembered, however, that there is at present no great obstacle in the way of Japanese emigration to China or Korea, or any part of the Orient; in fact, many thousands have already migrated. But this is not satisfactory to Japanese national ambitions, no matter how the émigrés may prosper in their new homes. The mother country not only wishes to secure a continental outlet for the emigration of her presumably surplus population, but she apparently wishes to retain her sovereignty over them after they leave their native land. Much significance is attached here to the continual comparisons of Japan with England. There is not the slightest doubt that Japan wishes to extend her political sovereignty over at least some, perhaps all, of the territories to which she sends emigrants. And thus at a glance the inconsistency of her declared intentions and purposes in undertaking this war with her real desires and oft-declared necessities appears. How is she to retain political touch with her emigrating subjects unless she acquires territory for them to settle in? Is it not clear that should Japan be content with her expressed intention to acquire no territory by