A mile south of the Butterworth farmhouse the road to the county seat crossed the crest of a hill, the highest point in the county, and from the road there was a magnificent view of the country lying to the south. The sky had begun to clear, and as they reached the point known as Lookout Hill, the moon broke through a tangle of clouds. Clara stopped the horse and turned to look down the hillside. Below lay the lights of her father's farmhouse--where he had come as a young man and to which long ago he had brought his bride. Far below the farmhouse a clustered mass of lights outlined the swiftly growing town. The determination that had carried Clara thus far wavered again and a lump came into her throat.
Hugh also turned to look but did not see the dark beauty of the country wearing its night jewels of lights. The woman he wanted so passionately and of whom he was so afraid had her face turned from him, and he dared to look at her. He saw the sharp curve of her breasts and in the dim light her cheeks seemed to glow with beauty. An odd notion came to him. In the uncertain light her face seemed to move independent of her body. It drew near him and then drew away. Once he thought the dimly seen white cheek would touch his own. He waited breathless. A flame of desire ran through his body.
Hugh's mind flew back through the years to his boyhood and young manhood. In the river town when he was a boy the raftsmen and hangers-on of the town's saloons, who had sometimes come to spend an afternoon on the river banks with his father John McVey, often spoke of women and marriage. As they lay on the burned grass in the warm sunlight they talked and the boy who lay half asleep nearby listened. The voices came to him as though out of the clouds or up out of the lazy waters of the great river and the talk of women awoke his boyhood lusts. One of the men, a tall young fellow with a mustache and with dark rings under his eyes, told in a lazy, drawling voice the tale of an adventure had with a woman one night when a raft on which he was employed had tied up near the city of St. Louis, and Hugh listened enviously. As he told the tale the young man a little awoke from his stupor, and when he laughed the other men lying about laughed with him. “I got the best of her after all,” he boasted. “After it was all over we went into a little room at the back of a saloon. I watched my chance and when she went to sleep sitting in a chair I took eight dollars out of her stocking.”