her just then. In another
moment or two the Major spoke again.

"If I can make your stay here pleasanter in any way I should be
delighted," he said. "If you will take up your quarters with us I will
send down to the inn for your things."

Wyllard excused himself, but when Mr. Radcliffe urged him to dine with
them on the following evening he hesitated.

"The one difficulty is that I don't know yet whether I shall be engaged
then," he said. "As it happens, I've a message for Miss Ismay, and I
wrote offering to call upon her at any convenient hour. So far, I have
heard nothing from her."

"She's away," Mrs. Radcliffe informed him. "They have probably sent your
letter on to her. I had a note from her yesterday, however, and expect
her here to-morrow. You have met some friends of hers in Canada?"

"Gregory Hawtrey," said Wyllard. "I have promised to call upon his
people, too."

He saw Major Radcliffe glance at his wife, and he noticed a faint gleam
in Mrs. Radcliffe's eyes.

"Well," she observed, "if you promise to come I will send word over to
Agatha."

Wyllard agreed to this, and went away a few minutes later. He noticed
the tact and consideration with which his new friends had refrained from
indicating any sign of the curiosity they naturally felt, for Mrs.
Radcliffe's face had suggested that she understood the situation, which
was beginning to appear a little more difficult to him. It was, it
seemed, his task to explain delicately to a girl brought up among such
people what she must be prepared to face as a farmer's wife in Western
Canada. He was not sure that this task would be easy in itself, but it
was rendered much more difficult by the fact that Hawtrey would expect
him to accomplish it without unduly daunting her. Her letter certainly
had suggested courage, but, after all, it was the courage of ignorance,
and he had now some notion of the life of ease and refinement her
English friends enjoyed. He was beginning to feel sorry for Agatha
Ismay.

CHAPTER VII

AGATHA DOES NOT FLINCH

The next evening Wyllard sat with Mrs. Radcliffe in a big low-ceilinged
room at Garside Scar. He looked about him with quiet interest. He had
now and then passed a day or two in huge Western hotels, but he had
never seen anything quite like that room. The sheer physical comfort of
its arrangements appealed to him, but after all he was not one who had
ever studied his bodily ease very much, and what he regarded as th