If it wouldn't be too painful, you might tell me a little about your
stay in Canada," he said by and by. "You never wrote, and"--he
hesitated--"I heard only once from Dick."

Dick was her dead husband's name, and she sat silent a few moments
musing, and glancing unobtrusively at George. He had not changed much
since she last saw him, on her wedding-day, though he looked a little
older, and rather more serious. There were faint signs of weariness
which she did not remember in his sunburned face. On the whole,
however, it was a reposeful face, with something in it that suggested a
steadfast disposition. His gray eyes met one calmly and directly; his
brown hair was short and stiff; the set of his lips and the contour of
his jaw were firm. George had entered on his thirtieth year. Though
he was strongly made, his appearance was in no way striking, and it was
seldom that his conversation was characterized by brilliancy. But his
friends trusted him.

"It's difficult to speak of," Sylvia began. "When, soon after our
wedding, Dick lost most of his money, and said that we must go to
Canada, I felt almost crushed; but I thought he was right." She paused
and glanced at George. "He told me what you wished to do, and I'm glad
that, generous as you are, he wouldn't hear of it."

George looked embarrassed.

"I felt his refusal a little," he said. "I could have spared the
money, and I was a friend of his."

He had proved a staunch friend, though he had been hardly tried. For
several years he had been Sylvia's devoted servant, and an admirer of
the more accomplished Marston. When the girl chose the latter it was a
cruel blow to George, for he had never regarded his comrade as a
possible rival; but after a few weeks of passionate bitterness, he had
quietly acquiesced. He had endeavored to blame neither; though there
were some who did not hold Sylvia guiltless. George was, as she well
knew, her faithful servant still; and this was largely why she meant to
tell him her tragic story.

"Well," she said, "when I first went out to the prairie, I was almost
appalled. Everything was so crude and barbarous--but you know the
country."

George merely nodded. He had spent a few years in a wheat-growing
settlement, inhabited by well-bred young Englishmen. The colony,
however, was not conducted on economic lines; and when it came to
grief, George, having come into some property on the death of a
relative, returned to Englan