its sides curiously ridged and furrowed where the trunks were laid on
one another. Further away rose a long building of sod, and a great
shapeless yellow mound with a domed top towered behind it. It was most
unlike a trim English rick, and Agatha wondered what it could be. As a
matter of fact, it was a not uncommon form of granary, the straw from
the last thrashing flung over a birch-pole framing. Behind it ran a
great breadth of knee-high stubble, blazing ocher and cadmium in the
sunlight. It had evidently extended further than it did, for a blackened
space showed where a fire had been lighted to destroy it. In the big
field Hastings was plowing. Clad in blue duck he plodded behind his
horses, which stopped now and then when the share jarred against a patch
of still frozen soil. Further on two other men, silhouetted in blue
against the whitened grass, drove spans of slowly moving oxen that
hauled big breaker plows, and the lines of clods that lengthened behind
them gleamed in the sunlight a rich chocolate-brown. Beyond them the
wilderness ran unbroken to the horizon.

Agatha gazed at it all vacantly, but the newness and strangeness of it
reacted upon her. She felt very desolate and lonely, but she remembered
that she must still grapple with a practical difficulty. She could not
stay with Mrs. Hastings indefinitely, and she had not the least notion
where to go or what she was to do. She was leaning back in her chair
wearily with half-closed eyes when her hostess came in and looked at her
with a smile that suggested comprehension. Mrs. Hastings was thin, and
seemed a trifle worn, but she had shrewd, kindly eyes. She wore a plain
print dress which was dusted here and there with flour.

"So you have sent him away!" she exclaimed.

It was borne in upon Agatha that she could be candid with this woman who
had already guessed the truth.

"Yes," she replied, "for six months. That is, we are not to decide on
anything until they have passed. I felt we must get used to each other.
It seemed best."

"To you. Did it seem best to Gregory?"

A flush crept into Agatha's face. Though his acquiescence had been a
relief to her, she felt that he might have made a more vigorous protest.

"He gave in to me," she answered.

Mrs. Hastings looked thoughtful. "Well," she observed, "I believe you
were wise, but that opens up another question. What are you going to do
in the meanwhile?"

"I don't know," confessed Agatha apathetically.