ith Bruce, and
thinking of what a different life she would have led if she had married
him!"

"Do you suppose," said Mrs. Trenton, "that that was her own story that
she told us? I think she must have felt it herself to be able to tell
it so."

Just at that moment Bruce Edwards was asking her the same question.

"Oh, no," she answered, quickly, while an interested group drew near;
"people never write their own sorrows--the broken heart does not sing--
that's the sadness of it. If one can talk of their sorrows they soon
cease to be. It's because I have not had any sorrows of my own that I
have seen and been able to tell of the tragedies of life."

"Isn't she the jolly best bluffer you ever heard?" one of the men
remarked to another. "Just think of that beautiful creature, born for
admiration, living ten miles from anywhere, on an Albertan ranch of all
places, and saying she is happy. She could be a top-notcher in any
society in Canada--why, great Scott! any of us would have married that
girl, and been glad to do it!" And under the glow of this generous
declaration Mr. Stanley Carruthers lit his cigarette and watched her
with unconcealed admiration.

As the Arts and Crafts had predicted, the newspapers gave considerable
space to their open meeting, and the Alberta author came in for a large
share of the reporters' finest spasms. It was the chance of a lifetime
--here was local color--human interest--romance--thrills! Good old
phrases, clover-scented and rosy-hued, that had lain in cold storage
for years, were brought out and used with conscious pride.

There was one paper which boldly hinted at what it called her
"_mesalliance_," and drew a lurid picture of her domestic unhappiness,
"so bravely borne." All the gossip of the Convention was in it
intensified and exaggerated--conjectures set down as known truths--the
idle chatter of idle women crystallized in print!

And of this paper a copy was sent by some unknown person to James
Dawson, Auburn, Alberta.

* * * * *

The rain was falling at Auburn, Alberta, with the dreary insistence of
unwelcome harvest rain. Just a quiet drizzle--plenty more where this
came from--no haste, no waste. It soaked the fields, keeping green the
grain which should be ripening in a clear sun. Kate Dawson had been
gone a week, and it would still be a week before she came back. Just a
week--seven days. Jim Dawson went over them in his mind as he drove the